People Of Fertile Sea

Jimbaran is a famous beach in Bali. Benito Lopulalan tells a story of fishermen on Jimbaran Bay. (Firstly published in BALI ECHO MAGAZINE, January 1998)

People of Fertile Sea by Benito Lopulalan

One a dark night, Umar is despondent about the thick fog that veils Jimbaran Bay. "I can't go fishing tonight" complains the Madurese angler, who earns his living by luring fish with no more than a hook, line and sinker from his simple wooden sloop. Umar is one of the many hardworking fishers who are the silent, invisible force behind the great resort dining and romantic candlelit seafood cafes for which Jimbaran Bay is most famed. Two main traditional villages are located on the bay: Jimbaran and Kedonganan. In both villages, the inhabitants base their livelihoods on boat-making and fishing. And like all fishers anywhere in the world, their main concern is tidal movements, water currents, tropical currents and typhoons. In other words, they are well aware of the precariousness of life for people of

the sea. "It would be so easy to have an accident in this mist," cautioned Umar in his thick Madurese accent. Given that fog on the bay is a rare occurrence indeed, he could not help but suggest wittily, "Perhaps Bali is being affected by the forest fires in Borneo after all." On a map of southern Bali, Jimbaran Bay appears as a wide bite out of the eastern side of the island's foot-like peninsula. Its predominantly limestone soil makes for beautiful white sand beaches, such as that of Jimbaran, but poor farming land. The land in Balli's southern peninsula is incredibly dry and arid. Large trees are thin on the ground. For the most part, the only ground cover here is coastal scrub, and the only shade is from coconut trees. The surrounding ocean, however, is much more plenteous. It still abounds in an immense variety of animal life, and several decades ago had an even richer supply of fruits de mer than it does now. Visitors to the bay in the seventies recall frequently seeing both fish and squid with the naked eye from the surface of the water. Local fishermen remember often snaring fish that were big enough to feed the whole family. But, as Made Pudja points out, while the sea has rewarded them much more graciously than the land on which they live, "we have always been farmers too." On the plot of land upon which we sat chatting, scores of chickens wandered in and out of their coops, pecking at pebbles on his small plot of land. Barrel-like, black hairy pigs snorted and grunted in their sty, kept muddy and damp under the shade of a coconut tree. The Balinese fishers of Jimbaran Bay have long had contact with those originating from other parts of the archipelago. But it wasn't until the beginning of this century that a traditional port was built in the bay, as a place where passing fishers could take refuge from the violent Indian Ocean. The construction of the Jimbaran port has encouraged even closer ties with fishers from Celebes, Java, Madura, who dock in the bay to replenish their supply or to sell produce they have brought from afar at the Kedonganan fish market. The local fishing industry has done very well out of the tourism boom that began to take place in Bali in the latter part of the nineteen eighties, as there has been an increased demand at the elite end of the market for fresh seafood in the Jimbaran area. This is not only due to the construction of a number of lux-

ury resorts around the bay - most of which include specialty seafood restaurants - but also the demand by upwardly mobile local (both Balinese and non-Balinese) yuppies for such hip dining situations as the down-market, on-the-sand seafood cafes. The promising growth of the market for fresh seafood in Jimbaran has attracted a flood of Javanese and Madurese fishers to the island. Using larger boats, most of them anchor offshore, thus depending on the smaller outriggers to transport their produce to the market and local fishers - or the many Madurese, Javanese and Lombok fisher who have migrated here since the boom - to transport and sell it for them. Although Jimbaran Beach is indeed pretty, and there is a certain romance to the soothing ebb and flow of the waves, the life of the fishers is far less romantic. "It's not as if the fish are just waiting for you to catch them," says Wayan Muka, who gave up the life of an angler years ago. "On some days, we wouldn't catch a thing, and would have to scrape up some other food for our family to eat." Muka quickly discovered that he would have to supplement his food income from fishing with farming produce, and began planting on his small plot of land by the beach. But whatever the case, the fishers of yesteryear were destined to live in poverty, as Muka explains: "Although there were many days when we hauled in incredible catches, the price for seafood was so low that we would rather just give it away free." Another fisher from Makassar, Laode, notes that since the price of seafood has risen the fish supply in the bay has begin to decrease significantly. "Perhaps, with so many fishers coming from all over, the bay has been fished out," he suggested. Perhaps too, the fish are victims of El Nino or even of pollution from development projects. Not only has the demand for seafood increased in the past few years. Due to the development of tourist facilities in Jimbaran, and the relocation of Bali's state Udayana University to the nearby Bukit, land values have gone through the roof. This is a fact that has changed the lives of Jimbaran fishers, especially those who have substantial amounts of land, a great deal. Wayan Muka, for example, sold several acres of the land he inherited from his parents to a broker several years ago, making Rp400 million from the deal. With that money, on his remaining land he built eight rooms to accommodate university students, who pay him Rp50,000 monthly for board. "My income from renting these eight rooms alone is more than what I got as a fisherman." Following his neighbor's example, Muka also bought

two new Jimnys at Rp44 million each, which he leases to a rent car company. When their daughter graduated from senior high school last year, the Pudja family opened a cafe selling fresh grilled seafood on Jimbaran Beach. "Only members of the traditional villages of Jimbaran and Kedonganan can get a license to open a cafe," claims Made Lastri, who works with her parents in their newly established cafe. The regulation has prompted almost every member of those villages to start their own cafes rather than continue fishing. "It's quite rare these days to find a Balinese family from Jimbaran or Kedonganan who make their living from fishing. The fisher community of Jimbaran Bay is now almost entirely composed of Madurese and Javanese, and it is Balinese who are the buyers," comments Sukemi, a Javanese woman who has a small stall at the Kedonganan fish market. So does Made Pudja never go fishing any more? "Sometimes I do, if I miss the sea." As an ex-fisher, Pudja is able now to experience fishing as something recreational. It just goes to show, the symbols of poverty can be enjoyed by those who are no longer poor.