Heaps thirsty.
During that final roll call, when all of the
good and all of the bad of all our lives is placed upon the scales,
will surfers, as a group, emerge as a beneficial sect or scurrilous
trash? On the positive side we might find gifting humanity a
healthy fear of Great White sharks. On the negative, maybe even on
top of a very large pile including, but not limited to, Kelly
Slater’s Surf Ranch plow, there will certainly be the exposure,
colonization and destruction of one-time paradise Bali.
Oh we’ve all been and many of us have even taken advantage of
favorable economic disparities to live gilded lives with swimming
pools, servants, etc. that would have been altogether impossible in
the United States or Australia. That would have never even been
dreamed but there, in Bali, rupiah raining down from the sky, we
practiced yoga on teak decks overlooking pristine breaks. We surfed
and hash-tagged #blessed.
Well, all those swimming pools etc., all those advertisements
for a perfect life attracted tourist hordes who are draining Bali
of her waters and let us read hard
truths. Let us look our sin directly in the eye.
Tourists are being blamed for a shortage of freshwater in
drought-stricken Bali, which has seen more than half its rivers run
dry.
The holiday island is still waiting for its delayed wet
season to begin as a drought that’s affecting an estimated 50
million people across Indonesia continues to threaten food
security, local culture and quality of life, Al-Jazeera
reports.
Some 260 of Bali’s 400 rivers have run dry and the island’s
largest water reserve, Lake Buyan, had dropped 3.5 metres.
Meanwhile, the falling water table is causing saltwater intrusion
in many areas across the island, especially in the south.
“I believe Bali is in real danger,” local journalist Anton
Muhajir, who has been covering Bali’s water crisis, told
Al-Jazeera.
“Some of my friends have had to move from their ancestral
homes in Denpasar because the water in their wells has turned
salty. At Jatiluwih, where thousands of tourists go each day to see
the most beautiful rice terraces of Bali, farmers are using plastic
pipes to pump in water they have to buy in the south because the
springs in the mountains are drying up.
“And now we have drought, not just in Bali but in nearly
every province in Indonesia.”
The blame has fallen on Bali’s tourism industry, which uses
about 65 per cent of the island’s water, according to the
Indonesian non-government organisation IDEP Foundation.
Etc.
And shame.
Shame on me. Shame on you. Shame on Taylor Steele who once lived
in Bali with his family but only a little bit of shame because I
sure would like a Christmas bottle of his organic sipping
tequila Solento and…
…wait just a minute. What if tequila was served on Bali instead
of water? What if the rivers, streams and reservoirs ran with 100%
agave goodness?
Could surfers actually save Bali?
More as the story develops.
