By Nyimas Laula, Sultan Anshori
” Before the tourist boom … what enlivened the Lembongan people was seaweed,” he stated.
Still, seaweed farming is tiresome work and less profitable than tourism, especially as the pandemic has lowered need.
Farmers state the dried seaweed, predestined for processing and to be exported for usage in food, currently fetches around 12,000 rupiah (80 U.S. cents) per kilo, supplying an earnings of up to $400 a month. That is simply over half of what the exact same haul would have brought before the pandemic, JASUDAs Boedi estimated.
I Putu Astawa, head of the Bali Tourism Board, said visitors were still needed due to the fact that “farming alone could not get Balis economy back to typical”.
Extra reporting and writing by Fathin Ungku; Editing by Ed Davies and Jane Wardell.
Some locals, like teacher and seaweed farmer Wayan Ujiana, 51, are taking the pandemic as a lesson not to depend too much on tourist: “Dont forget to diversify your income, so when problems occur we do not collapse.”
($ 1 = 14,850.0000 rupiah).
With lots of restaurants and bars shut on the island, drying seaweed fills the streets as tourist workers go back to a market that waned a years earlier, despite Indonesias status as the worlds second-biggest seaweed manufacturer behind China.
” Farmers are beginning to plant seaweed again,” said Boedi Sarkana Julianto of Indonesias Natural Resources Network (( JASUDA), a seaweed farming non-governmental organisation.
” At first I was confused, wondering, what should I do?,” stated Kadek, 34. “But along the method we found this work, planting seaweed … and made some income to purchase food and things for our children.”
Wali Putra, a 50 year-old dining establishment manager who has actually been farming seaweed the majority of his life, stated the pandemic reminded him of his childhood.
,” stated Kadek, 34. “But along the way we discovered this work, planting seaweed … and made some earnings to purchase food and things for our kids.”
NUSA LEMBONGAN, Indonesia (Reuters) – Before the coronavirus pandemic took its grip on Indonesia, the beautiful beaches of Lembongan island lapped by the Indian Ocean were dotted with sunbathing tourists from throughout the world.
Now, with numerous visitors gone and the economy in tatters, locals are frequently seen bring baskets packed with seaweed up the shore amid a shift back to previous ways of earning a living.
” I feel unfortunate since we lost our tasks and now we have to go back to square one,” stated I Gede Darma Putra, 43, a local of Lembongan, who used to assist travelers as a dive master.
Like many locals on this speck of an island about 50 km (30 miles) off Bali, he and his other half Kadek Kristiani now wade through beautiful waters to collect seaweed growing on lines.
Bali usually draws in millions of visitors a year, many brought in by beaches in spots like Lembongan, however plans to reopen to foreign travelers have actually been postponed indefinitely due climbing up COVID-19 cases in Indonesia.
