Return Bali’s Image
as the Turtle-Friendly Island

To return Bali’s image as a turtle-friendly island, particularly Serangan Island, the joint secretariat of Turtle-Related Issues Management in Bali in cooperation with WWF, Bapedalda Bali and Serangan Villagers held a round table discussion on Law Reinforcement located at Inna Bali Hotel, Denpasar last Monday (11/10). The discussion themed “Return Bali’s Image as the Turtle-Friendly Tourist Resort through Ceasing Turtle Trade.” It aimed at making the forum a mutual information exchange on law reinforcement toward the turtle trade in Bali, and at the same time finding the best solution in ceasing the turtle trade in Bali.

Coordinator of the discussion, I Wayan Sukara, reported that the two-day round table discussion was attended by 25 participants, consisting of the chief of the customary village, chief of hamlet of all-Serangan Village and police department (Regional Police Agency of Bali, Municipal Police Agency of Denpasar, Waters &Air Police Agency), Regional Attorney, Regional Justice, Directorate General of Forest Protection and Nature’s Conservation (PHKA) and Conservation Agency of Natural Resources (KSDA) Bali.There were three reasons of performing the discussion: firstly, there was an indication that the police agency found difficulties in carrying out monitoring consistently and systematically on the sea turtle trade in Bali, either due to the limited number of police personnel, lack of operational budget or the shortcoming of community’s support. Secondly, the non-existence of reliable technical instruction to follow up the Decree of Bali’s Governor dated 7 September 2001 and the Circular of Chairman of BKSDA dated 23 November 2001 on the policy of turtle utilization that is just intended for large and special scale religious rituals that give opportunities to the occurrence of the turtle trade. Thirdly, police endeavors to catch the culprits of illegal trade in which these days is frequently discouraged by the punishment imposed being too light and not in accordance with the jurisdiction prevailing, Government Regulation No.7/1999.
One of the speakers was AKBP Gede Artawan, a police officer who in 2000 accomplished to perform a continuum chase operation of big traders of sea turtles. On the second day, Tuesday (12/10) the discussion talked about a number of selected legal solutions in ceasing the turtle trade and natural resources that put forward into the customary regulation (awig-awig) of Serangan Village. By this awig-awig it was considered to make it easier to control the coastline and drive out the vessel transporting turtles to enter Serangan. “We’ll immediately revise the customary regulation. I have talked to the Village Chief and a number of people on this matter,” said a spokesperson of Serangan Village, Made Mudana Wiguna.
In the meantime, the Turtle Campaign Leader of WWF, IB Windia Adnyana, PhD., added that the result of monitoring showed that in August 2004, there was a turtle conveyor vessel entering Serangan with 60 turtles. Then, in September 2004, there were 4 vessels that entered with 616 sea turtles. And in the period of May-July 2004 were recorded 15 vessels that entered the waters of Serangan along with 1,573 turtles. “The real number must be higher as the monitoring is done by the non-intrusive method, namely observing and interviewed the cabin crews or conveying workers, not coming aboard and counting its number one by one,” he said.
(BTN/015)