BALI - Local Community Leader Claims Developers Have Severely Damaged Serangan Island.

Balidiscovery.com, (9/28/2006)

According to a report published in the Indonesian language Bali Post, the reclamation project on Pulau Serangan, carried out by PT Bali Turtle Development (PTBTD), has caused substantial suffering for the people living on Bali's nearest island neighbor. The island was once a green and fertile locale surrounded by waters in which a wide variety of fish, crustaceans and other sea life were harvested by Pulau Serangan's residents.

Sadly, little is left of the island's former beauty. The 418 hectare reclamation project - comprised of 100 hectares of the Original Island and 318 hectares of new reclaimed land, is now a barren limestone outcropping, dusty and largely devoid of flora and fauna.

I Wayan Sudarsana, the Secretary of the People's Forum for the Rehabilitation of Serangan Island told the Bali Post that the reclamation project has caused a number of difficulties for the island's residents, falling far short he claims of the many promises made over the past years by the project's developers which included a promised integrated tourism development and luxury hotel.

As part of the major reclamation project, the eastern shore of the island has undergone major excavation and the destruction of environmentally sensetive hectares of mangrove forests that once surrounded the island. And, according to Sudarsana, developers have destroyed surrounding coral reefs to a distance of up to more than 1,000 meters from the shoreline, effectively eliminating the natural habitat of the abundant sea life that once lived in these areas.

>>Full article