The Bali Provincial Legislative Council (DPRD) wants the Bali government to stop all investments in and around Lake Buyan, a meeting concludes.
During a plenary meeting session at the DPRD building in Denpasar, on Thursday, Bali DPRD speaker Ida Bagus Putu Wesnawa ordered the Bali government to stop all investments related to the lake.
"We have to stop all investors from developing the Buyan lake area," he said.
Wesnawa said Lake Buyan must be restored to its original condition by following existing regulations on sacred sites.
He said any developments at the lake would disrupt its purity, citing the belief of the Hindu-majority Bali that several lakes, sea beds and mountains were sacred areas.
Located in Sukasada district, Lake Buyan is one of three lakes situated within a large caldera. It has been revered as one of the most sacred sites in Bali.
Lakes, in particular, are revered as the throne of Bhatari Danu, the goddess of water and fertility. For a religious culture that has been built upon water and agriculture, huge water reservoirs like lakes are an important and sacred cultural landmark.
This distinction has been stipulated in a 2005 bylaw, which bans any physical developments at sacred sites.
"Just restore everything to the rule that mountains, the sea, rivers, water sources and lakes, wherever they are, must not be developed," he said.
He denied the accusation that the council was trying to obstruct north Bali from being developed, saying that the council was merely trying to control the island from being "impure".
"We're trying to take care of north Bali, not obstruct development there," he said.
In response, I Putu Suardhika, head of the Bali Administration Public Relations and Protocols division, said the government had no plans to evict project developers from Lake Buyan.
"We haven't received any instructions from the governor so we'll continue processing development requests," Suardhika said during a telephone interview Thursday.
Lake Buyan has received a lot of attention lately after a recent meeting between one developer, PT. Anantara, and the Bali government, during which Anantara's representatives outlined the company's plan to develop Lake Buyan into an eco-tourism heaven.
PT. Anantara was rebuked by Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika, who refused to give Anantara a governor's recommendation to develop there.
However, another developer, PT Nusa Bali Abadi, is currently building a villa over 20 hectares of land in the area with a permit from the Forestry Ministry, though it lacks a governor's recommendation that it failed to get from former governor Dewa Made Beratha.
Suardhika reminded that PT Nusa Bali Abadi did not receive any recommendation from the current governor either
