• Selling Last and Love in Bali
• What to Do-Kuta and Seminyak
• The Hidden Life of South Bali
• The Struggle to Save Bali's Turtles
• Jimbaran-The Bukit
• What to Do-Impossible Surf at The Bukit
• Fair Trade in Bali
• Ubud
• A Dance for Every Day
• Balinese Painters
• Ubud-What to do
• A Word of Dance
• East Bali in a Nutshell
• The Hidden life of East Bali
• Klungkung
• Where to Stay-Padang Bay
• Where to Stay Candidasa
• First and Third World in Tenganan
• Amlapura-Tirtagangga
• Tirtagangga and Around
• Amed Beach
• Planning Your Trip: The Best of Bali
• South Bali in a Nutshell

 

The Struggle to Save Bali 's turtles

Tourist facilities. Turtles are extremely sensitive to changes in their habitat, with noise and lights dissuading them from leaving the water to lay their eggs. Their slow movements and clumsy, paddle-like legs make them easy prey for predators. Scientists estimate that only two to ten percent of turtle eggs survive to maturity in the wild. In a Bali booming from the tourism business, the turtles' chances were growing even slimmer.

Activists and the Government

In 1990, under pressure from local conservation organi­sations, the governor of Bali banned the sale of turtle meat in Bali 's restaurant and limited the turtle trade to the port of tanjung Benoa. In deference to communities who argued that turtle was a necessary part of Balinese religious ritual, the decree ste a quota of 5,000 turtles per year which could be killed for traditional ceremonies.

But the Balinese government had neither the facilities – nor, many environmental activists claimed, the inclination – to monitor the slaughterings. Ketut Sarjana Putra from the WWF claims that under the quota system, turtle killing in Bali reached a high of 27,000 per year. In fact, the quota system lured traders from other parts of Indonesia Bali, making Tanjung Benoa the centre for an estimated 80 % of the national turtle trade.

After concluding that the quotas were ineffective in protecting the turtles, environmental organizations recommended a total a ban on turtle trading in Bali . Yet after a new decree banned turtle trade in 1999, the activities continued, shifting underground after a few police raids. The large – scale traders - most of whom, Ketut Sarjana Putra claims, come from other islands - process hundred of turtles a month through their heavily-guarded turtle pens. they coordinate their businesses with mobile phones, travelling in luxury sedans. They can use their wealth to make strategic payments to the authorities. They can also mobilise the inhabitants of places like Tanjung Benoa, where locals and migrants live from turtle trade , pushing them to resort to violence when necessary.

environmental activists appearing

local conservation organi­sations

turtle trading takes