Bali Governor I Made Mangku Pastika announced Sunday his administration would establish a special team to review investor plans to transform one of the island's lakes into a mass tourism venue.

The plan has drawn strong criticism from local environmental activists, who say the project would further degrade the integrity of the surrounding area, estimated to be one of the island's few remaining water absorption areas. "A team will be assigned to review the plan. We, of course, will not issue any recommendation without first reviewing and deliberating on it thoroughly," Pastika said during an inspection trip to Karangasem on Sunday.

Pastika stressed he expects the investor to initiate rehabilitation programs to mitigate the environmental damage affecting areas around the lake. "In inviting investors, we don't have any intention to damage the environment, on the contrary, the lake's current condition has moved us to look for suitable investors *to help improve it*," he added.

Pastika pointed out Buyan is currently suffering from a severe sedimentation problem. Sedimentation has mucked up 60 hectares of the lake's total area of 336.

The lake's water quality has also degraded significantly due to pollution, the use of chemical fertilizers in lakeside farms and the practice of channeling waste and garbage into the lake. there is the problem of poverty, widespread among communities living around the lake. Poverty will force people to do anything, including damage the environment, to sustain themselves," he said.

The construction of a tourism project at the lake, Pastika said, would provide job opportunities for the local community, diminishing poverty.

Rehabilitating the lake's surrounding environment would require extensive effort, including dredging, reforestation and construction of a network of filters to prevent polluting waste from entering the lake. a program calls for huge funding,why we need investors," he said.

Agung Wardana, the Bali chapter's head of Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI), lambasted Pastika's logic as "a misguided way of thinking".

"Conserving the lake *by inviting investors* is simply a clich*, a pretext. The administration should instead put a halt to every man-made construction project near the lake if it is really serious about saving the environment," he said.

The mass tourism project, he said, would turn the lake from public space into a private one, thus robbing the local communities of their right to manage and gain benefit from the lake.

On Friday, representatives of PT Anantara presented the governor and the regent of Buleleng with a proposal to build upscale tourism facilities on a 60-hectare plot in and around the lake. The construction phase would employ around 1,000 workers.

Located in the Sukasada district of Buleleng, Lake Buyan is one of a trio of lakes within an extensive caldera. A vast virgin forest separates Lake Buyan from Lake Tamblingan to the west; Lake Beratan lies to the east.

So far only the area around Lake Beratan has been developed as a tourist destination. Its close proximity with Eka Karya, the island's largest botanical garden, has made Beratan a favorite weekend getaway for residents of Bali's southern cities. Beratan also hosts Ulun Danu, a major water temple on the island.

-JP/Ni Komang Erviani

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