8degreesoflatitude

His fortnightly diet of worms and other non-religious experiences

A Line in Their Sand

Developer tycoon Tomy Winata, who rose from street ice-pop seller to become one of Indonesia’s richest men and whose substantial and rightly recognized philanthropic ventures include helping the poor and saving Sumatran tigers (and protecting mangroves; we kid you not) is having a rough trot with his plans to destroy more than 700 hectares of mangroves in Benoa Bay to build hotels, a convention centre and an entertainment complex.

The plan has the approval and support of Governor Made Mangku Pastika, though why this should be so has long been something of a mystery. Perhaps it is connected with Pastika’s wish to see millions of Chinese tourists in Bali. They travel in corralled but otherwise unmanageable packs, so Winata’s proposed seaside attraction might at least provide space for all their buses to park.

Digging up the mangroves and destroying a precious marine habitat requires 23 million cubic metres of sand to be dumped in their place. Winata’s company Tirta Wahana Bali International would like to dredge that sand from East Lombok.

Governor Zainul Majdi of West Nusa Tenggara doesn’t like this idea at all. The Apr. 5 issue of the useful publication Lombok Guide reported his view as being that the plans were the reverse of beneficial as “the disadvantages outweighed the advantages”. Doubtless the crabs and fish of the Benoa mangroves would agree. So would the Benoa fishermen whose livelihoods are to be expropriated so that Winata and others can get even richer at the expense of Bali’s unique natural environment and traditional human society.

Governor Zainul has formally filed a letter rejecting the plan with the Forest and Environment Ministry’s Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis. The Lombok Guide reported what he said when advising of his action. His words are worth thinking about:

“Lombok Island has a small island ecosystem and must be maintained, both on land and at sea. We want to guard this area so we can pass it on to the next generation. Therefore, we won’t permit anything that can destroy the environmental quality in West Nusa Tenggara.”

Karmic Payback

Still with the Lombok Guide – it is essential reading at The Cage: We had a giggle when we read that Governor Zainul Majdi was a little shirty about PLN (in its West Nusa Tenggara incarnation) because of the continual blackouts it was visiting upon his province.

He was particularly miffed about them not even bothering to reply to his correspondence, reminded them publicly of their corporate charter (it involves supplying power, which may surprise them) and threatened to report them for doing dodgy business. We sympathize. Monopolies everywhere are as uncommunicative as possible.

But we shouldn’t have giggled. It was incautious in the Karmic sense. The day after we did, PLN (in its defective Bali incarnation) turned the power off at The Cage for several hours. Since on the previous evening, after Easter libations had been taken to excess, we had not been bothered to recharge our laptop or our mobile phone, the morning in question was rather flat and unproductive.

Our Favourite Dish

A Moroccan ambience has always attracted The Diary. It’s nothing to do with kif, really, or Orwell’s diaries, or even Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. It’s much more to do with Moroccan food and coffee, especially when these are evocatively teamed with the warm Berber colours and tones of the western Maghreb.

So we were pleased to hear from our favourite dish, Diana Shearin, that Café Cous Cous is the place to go for same, if you can find your way through the traffic to reach the new establishment in Jl Bumbak, Gg Pulau, at Umalas. We’ve promised to try.

Still Barking Mad

Rabies is re-emerging as a threat to Bali, with another death from the preventable disease in Bangli regency and clear indications that the required 70 per cent vaccination screen in the canine community is nowhere near reality and that rabies must be assumed to be both present and a deadly threat everywhere throughout the island.

This situation is made even grimmer by a silly (and dangerous) dispute between Bali’s health department and the suppliers of the Indonesian-made human anti-rabies vaccine used in the public system here, the Bandung-based BioFarma. The health authorities said in early April that vaccine supply was sufficient for only two weeks at prevailing levels of demand.

Provincial health director Dr Ketut Suarjaya told local media (on Apr. 5): “There are only 9,000 vials left of the VAR, this could last from two to three weeks. The average number of dog bites a day is roughly 120; one person requires four vials of the vaccine.”

The shortage is not one of supply, but of argument over the price of the vaccine. Last year’s agreed price was Rp. 155,000 a vial (that’s around US$13). This year, so the health department says, BioFarma is advertising a price per vial of Rp. 78,000 (US$6.50) but is refusing to supply it at that price.

The terms of the contractual agreement between the Bali health department and BioFarma are of course invisible in the thickets of dysfunction that pass for public administration here. It would be unreasonable to compel a private company to supply material at sub-economic cost, but it is also criminally stupid to risk running out of essential protection against an invariably fatal disease because of a commercial dispute.

Preventing internationally notifiable diseases is – or it should be – a function of the central government. Measures such as ensuring there is sufficient vaccine available in areas where it is needed are too important to be left to take their chances in a confusing mishmash of sight-impaired bureaucracies.

Someone needs to take responsibility. What’s that? Do we hear a rush for the doors?

Show it Off

The Bali Animal Welfare Association has an interesting opportunity for designers who would like to showcase their work in a contest to choose designs to feature in BAWA’s 2015 line of T-shirts and ecologically responsible bags.

BAWA wants designs with international appeal that represent what the animals of Bali mean to the artist and how the artist has been positively affected by the association’s work to nourish and protect Bali’s dogs and other animals.

Participants can enter up to three original designs and up to five designs will be chosen to be featured on merchandise sold to raise funds at BAWA shops and events, including overseas. Submissions close on Apr. 23. See BAWA’s website for details.

Resourceful Crowd

Marine and fisheries minister Susi Pudjiastuti turned out at a function in Jakarta on Mar. 31 to help launch a very worthwhile initiative – the Indonesian chapter of Women in Global Business. The actual launch was performed by the new Australian ambassador, Paul Grigson, who replaced Greg Moriarty in December 2014 but remained officially in purdah (as is the form) until he presented his credentials to President Joko Widodo on Mar. 19.

Businesses owned and operated by women are one of the fastest growing economic sectors. The international program launched on Mar. 31 supports businesswomen who want to take their products and services to the world by offering a central source of information and resources, support and connection.

Minister Susi, formerly an entrepreneur and head of charter airline Susi Air, and Grigson spoke at the gathering along with Indonesian and Australian women entrepreneurs and role models. The global resource centre is sponsored by ANZ, an Australian bank.

It’s good to diarize Ambassador Grigson now he can be seen publicly. Readers may remember that when the new British ambassador, the engaging tweeter Moazzam Malik, presented his credentials to President Widodo late last year, he forgot his letter from the Queen and had to leap from his limo and run back to get it. We do hope Grigson remembered his billet-doux from the Queen’s Australian viceroy and didn’t have to do the same.

Way to Go

Back in the day, when Sex and the City was all the rage with the distaff class, the on-screen antics of Kim Cattrall (Samantha in the series) were matters of very deep personal disinterest. But a little reference in the British newspaper The Guardian recently revealed the real Kim, and she is to our taste.

She said this: “The men I’ve been with have all been pleasant-enough looking. But for me, sex starts in the brain. What’s going on lower down doesn’t make me want to possess someone; it’s usually a little twinkle about them or a sense of humour.”

Got it! A good giggle is just the ticket.

Hector tweets @ scratchings on Twitter. His diary appears in the Bali Advertiser print and online editions http://www.baliadvertiser.biz