Nestled in the mist-shrouded mountains of northern Bali, organic coffee farmer Putu Ardana is leading the charge to revive traditional farming and protect sacred lands from mass development and tourism.
Ardana, 67, grows, harvests and roasts Arabica beans without chemicals and fertilizers in his village of Munduk, perched 800 metres above sea level. He uses water from nearby Tamblingan Lake — which is sacred to him and other members of the Indigenous Dalem Tamblingan people who first settled around local lakes and forests in the 9th century.
The island province of Bali also lies at the heart of Indonesian tourism. The popular destination accounts for half of the country’s $20-billion annual tourism revenue and the bulk of its tens of millions of visitors. Eighty per cent of the Balinese economy depends on tourism.
But Ardana believes “tourism should be a side-effect … not our main goal and our way of life.”
Bali’s mass tourism,…
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