The Balinese Tolak Reklamasi movement is protesting the exploitation of Bali by huge international companies. They are not completely against all tourism or a group that only thinks The Balinese or Hindus is the right. There are people from other areas and with other religious views supporting and participating in Tolak Reklamasi (Reject the reclamation). It is a peoples movement. The main goal is to stop The Benoa Bay exploitation. Reject the reclamation of The Benoa Bay.
There is now a plan for a 3 billion dollar tourism project in The Benoa Bay area. That is about building artificial islands with resorts for rich people. This will also include huge harbors for cruising ships. This reclamation will destroy a natural area of mangrove trees and has far worse environment causes in Bali overall.
There have been fishermen in a more smaller scale harbor in this area. They have been refusing to move from there. Then the stories about this are different depending on whom you talk to. But what is for sure is that some days ago around 30 ships got burnt in a fire disaster. And this is right in the spot where the building of this mega-tourism complex should go on. In all the media I’ve been reading, internationally, about this fire disaster, the only explanation I get is that Bali has to pour safety for fires and that the boats have been to close to each other in the harbor.
Some locals have other versions. One version is that people, or the government, with interest in this exploitation project, has burnt the ships. A friend of mine send me the same kind of article as the ones I already read recently about this incident, but with a date from 2017. The causes of the fire that year, as with this year fire, are not solved. Just some thoughts are presented about that it could be about electricity. In 2017 it was only three boats that got on fire thanks to helping from 15 fire engines and two boats deployed to the scene. In 2018 the fire was more massive and it went extremely fast. 40 ships got gulped in the fire this time. It might be an electrical short circuit that caused the fire. But this is widely discussed.
”The negative aspects of unrestricted tourist development have been highlighted by the Bali Tolak Reklamasi movement, including unregulated mining of limestone and coral for hotel and airport construction, coastal erosion, plastic waste, sewage pollution, and water source diversions from the Subak water irrigation system towards areas that no longer have existing water tables.”
”…estimated 85 percent of the tourism economy in Bali is non-Balinese owned, and the tourism industry accounts for 65 percent of Bali’s water consumption.”
