Ideas on tourism governance, environmental capacity, and the systems that hold ordinary life together in Bali and other overdeveloped destinations. Quality of thinking first.
3 Essays Published · 2026The landfill at Suwung is thirty-five meters high. The government scheduled its closure for the G20 summit in 2022. The summit came and went. The pile kept growing. Some mornings the smell arrives at the beach and the week reorganises itself around a signal that has become so ordinary I no longer think of it as a signal until I describe it to someone who does not live here and watch their face change.
Read EssaySomeone did the math recently. Seven million international visitors in 2025. At any given moment, roughly 135,000 foreign tourists are on the island. Bali's population is 4.4 million. That is about three percent. The math is correct. The question is wrong. Three percent does not explain why more than half the rivers are dry, or why the subak farmer is in a water dispute with the hotel above his field.
In January 2026, the Governor of Bali announced that foreign tourists would be screened by their bank statements. The policy was framed under two words: quality tourism. Quality is a claim that works in two directions. If Bali asks tourists to prove they are good enough for the island, the island should be able to prove it is ready for the tourists it wants to attract. So far, only one side has been asked to show receipts.
We publish writing on tourism governance, land use, environmental systems, and the lived experience of overdeveloped destinations. We look for ideas that are honest, specific, and prepared to name what they find, whatever the angle.
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