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All beaches are public space, Sandiaga tells hotels

A viral video of an argument over public access to Sumba waters has prompted the tourism minister to cite a presidential regulation clearly stipulated that all beaches and waters are public space.

Deni Ghifari (The Jakarta Post)
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Tue, June 4, 2024

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All beaches are public space, Sandiaga tells hotels Mangroves are silhouetted against the setting sun at Walakiri Beach in East Sumba, Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara, in this file photo from June 2018. (JP/Liza Josephine) (JP/Liza Yosephine)

T

ourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno has reiterated that hotels do not own and cannot own beaches and waters adjacent to their property, stressing that such areas are public space.

Sandiaga made the remark in response to a viral video appearing to show a hotel employee prohibiting a local resident from surfing near the property in Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara.

“[Beaches] are a public space. We need to underline that investors must pay heed to the rules for coastlines,” the minister told a press briefing on Monday.

The video clip was uploaded on May 24 to the TikTok account of Ishak maja (@ishakmaja20) with the caption: “Is it reasonable for us local people to be prohibited from surfing at our own island?”

It has since received more than 22,000 likes and over 1,200 comments.

The 2-minute clip shows an argument at sea between what appear to be hotel workers on a dinghy and a surfer about the public’s right to access the water adjacent to the hotel.

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One woman, presumably a hotel representative, insists that the surfer must leave because the water is deemed as a “utilization area”, but the surfer maintains they have “no right to prohibit” him from entering the water.

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