Changes in the river and beach management policies in Bali

	In the Interest of everybody we hope that both the beach pollution and the beach constructions will never reappear, this photo taken June 1997

During the 1997 campaign against the 'Illegal Beach Constructions' a large swell uncovered tons of garbage buried under the sand. Combined with the Bacteria run-off from rivers and streams, created large pockets of Bacterial feeding Algae all along the popular Kuta beach of Bali. After independent tests prove the waters were dangerously polluted, Earth Advocates anonymously publicized its data with photos and the story on the world wide web. CNN picked up the information and screened it world wide. All this with vocal protests led the Balinese Government to stiffen its river dumping laws and remove all businesses away from the beaches. Also, new beach cleaning rules were put into place. The new management plan helped revive the sand crab population that had suffered heavy population loses. In spite of the fact that the in Bali the waterways are still very polluted by Western standards, due to open canalization and lack of sewage processing Plants, there have been great steps forward in the management of these waterways. A small but yet important victory for Earth Advocates and Bali's Ecosystem.

 

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