Who can resist taking pictures in a blooming sunflower field? For people with an active social media presence it would surely garner likes from their followers.

But if the sunflower field is swarmed by an uncontrollable crowd striking their best poses while trampling the flowers, will all the likes be worth it?

A 2,000-square meter sunflower field in Makam alley in Pinang subdistrict, Tangerang, Banten, has become the latest victim of selfie seekers. After catching the attention of Tangerang residents, the field was now almost shorn of sunflowers after visitors ventured between the narrow rows and plucked sunflower heads to take home, said a farmer.

Masyari lamented the fact that the field he had tended to make a profit had been turned into a wasteland. The 57-year-old local planted the sunflower seeds, which had grown into 5,000 flowers, in September. It takes about four months for the bright yellow flower heads to appear.

He initially intended to sell the sunflower heads to a buyer at the Rawa Belong flower market in West Jakarta.

He never thought that once the sunflowers bloomed it would attract so many visitors.

Masyari recalled that some junior high school students had passed the field while walking home in mid-December, asking his permission to snap some pictures. Since then, the number of visitors has gradually increased.

“Some of them tried to pick the flowers. Therefore, I sold the broken ones [to visitors],” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday. He charges Rp 5,000 (34 US cents) for three flowers and an entry fee of Rp 5,000 per person.

The field, which comprised 10 rows, now only has one-and-a-half rows left.

However, Masyari tries to see the silver lining. He claimed that more than 100 people per day have visited the field over the past week, saying he could earn up to Rp 2 million per day.

“It is like sudden sustenance. But reminding people to keep the field in prime condition is very difficult,” he said.

Masyari added that he was considering planting timun suri (a type of gourd) on the plot ahead of Ramadhan rather than sunflowers as the former is often used in a dessert during the fasting month.

Tangerang resident Okke Oktavia, 25, said she had stopped someone from picking a sunflower when she visited the field recently.

“I saw someone was picking a sunflower, so I said it was prohibited. She then left. But unfortunately, its stem was broken,” she added.

Another Tangerang resident, Yunita, 29, told the Post that she was curious about the sunflower field after seeing it on Instagram.

“It is rare to see a sunflower field around here,” she said. However, Yunita criticized some of the visitors who plucked the sunflowers and for littering the area.

Incidences of attractions being damaged after going viral include the trampling of flowers in Amarilis Garden in Yogyakarta and Baturaden Garden in Banyumas, Central Java, which attracted public attention back in 2015.

Devie Rahmawati, a social analyst from the University of Indonesia, said she believed Indonesians were not actually destructive but simply uninformed, adding that respect for the environment should be structurally developed involving clear and strict rules.

“[The country’s] economic growth is not necessarily proportional to social literacy. It has to be consistently communicated to people,” she said.

Muhammad Baiquni, a tourism expert at Gajah Mada University’s Center of Tourism Studies, said continual communication was required to change people’s behavior.

“It is not only about [selfie culture] in a picturesque places, but also extreme ones. There has to be improved awareness so that they do not endanger themselves or their surroundings.

“There is a lot of community-based tourism, with sunflower gardens among them. Such places can be beneficial to children and their parents to promote floral knowledge,” Baiquni said.

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