{"id":556313,"date":"2026-03-22T04:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T04:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556313\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T04:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T04:48:14","slug":"balis-kuta-beach-a-sad-reflection-of-its-former-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556313\/","title":{"rendered":"Bali\u2019s Kuta Beach a sad reflection of its former glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 22, 2026 \u2014 1:45pm<\/p>\n

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Bali: It is as embedded in the Australian psyche as any beach in the world, a rite of passage for generations of travellers to Bali. But Kuta Beach today is desolate.<\/p>\n

The near-complete debasement of this former paradise is not from over-tourism, though many will say this has happened, too.<\/p>\n

Rather, recent storms have demolished swaths of the jogging path that ran along the beachfront, leaving steep, loose mounds of white rock. The tides are also swallowing up the sand.<\/p>\n

\"KutaKuta Beach in healthier times.Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at this,\u201d says 24-year-old surf instructor Sandro, motioning to the unsightly, hollowed-out shoreline. \u201cPeople come, and then they just walk away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two young women are navigating the thin strip of sand on a receding tide. Sandro assumes they are trying to sunbathe. \u201cCan you imagine trying to lie down there?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

The women are actually trying to find an Instagrammable selfie spot. It seems faintly fraudulent.<\/p>\n

Luckily for Sandro, there are still waves. Although he is making a fraction of the amount he earned even a few years ago, he has a dozen or so happy customers out paddling on hired boards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who sell the drinks are worse off than me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe famous Kuta Beach has been hollowed out by erosion. A jogging path that used to top these rocks has been washed away. Amilia Rosa<\/p>\n

Strolling by are Australians David and Natalie Ritter, who have been coming to Kuta for 34 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first came here, the beach was out to that back break,\u201d David says, pointing out to sea. \u201cThere were big, beautiful trees here. People had weddings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AustraliansAustralians David and Natalie Ritter at Kuta Beach recently with drink and trinket sellers \u2013 old friends of theirs \u2013 on a video call to the kids. Amilia Rosa<\/p>\n

Natalie is talking to the drink and trinket sellers, friends of theirs for decades. The couple\u2019s children have joined in via a video call.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese poor buggers,\u201d David says. \u201cThese ladies, they\u2019re struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the tide starts to retreat, enough sand reappears for vendors to put out a few beach tables and chairs, a faint glimmer of the glory days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be beautiful, covered in tourists,\u201d says bracelet seller Ni Nengah Sidani, who goes by \u201cSuzy\u201d, a nickname given to her by Australian friends years ago.<\/p>\n

\"SuzySuzy hadn\u2019t sold a single item the day we visited.Amilia Rosa<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was all sand, clean white sand,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had community groups to clean it up. You can\u2019t even sweep the beach now because of the rocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve earned zero money here today. Back when the beach was beautiful, I\u2019d earn Rp500,000 ($42) very easily. I\u2019ve started losing hair now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all I can do. This is how I earn my living.\u201d<\/p>\n

The beach at Legian, not far away, is filled with tourists. But Suzy says she cannot sell there because the fee to do so is more than she can hope to save, at least these days.<\/p>\n

\"GenerationsGenerations of tourists have been seduced back to Kuta again and again by the waves.Tamara Dean<\/p>\n

Surfers beat the path to Kuta Beach in the 1960s and \u201970s. Generations of tourists followed, seduced by the waves, smiling locals and dirt-cheap Bintangs, best enjoyed on beach lounges under the shade of umbrellas.<\/p>\n

Cheap and comparatively close, Bali soon became Australia\u2019s most popular foreign holiday destination.<\/p>\n

Overall, tourism to the island is booming, with a record 7 million foreign tourists visiting in 2025.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Motorcyclists<\/a><\/p>\n

The Kuta vendors are missing out, partly because of the sorry state of the beach, and partly because the island\u2019s centre of gravity has already shifted further up the coast to Canggu.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Balai Wilayah Sungai (BWS) the Bali organisation responsible for the beach\u2019s health, says the chief cause of the erosion is waves from the West Monsoon, which happens each year between October and April.<\/p>\n

But the monsoon has been hitting this beach for eons. What has changed?<\/p>\n

The storms last year were severe. Some people blame climate change. Others say the airport and its various coastal expansions have messed with the natural currents.<\/p>\n

The BWS spokesman says the extended runway only influences the generation of lesser, southerly waves, which are not as decisive when it comes to Kuta Beach erosion. The airport did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Rubbish<\/a><\/p>\n

Vendors at the beach say the erosion worsened after the construction of the now-vanished jogging path, just after the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

But not all is lost for Kuta Beach. The government has begun replacing the sand lost to erosion, and will continue doing so. In some parts, rocks have been laid on the upper beach to absorb the force of waves at high tide. The BWS spokesman says breakwalls will be built off the south end.<\/p>\n

The replacement sand is being collected 30 to 50 metres off the coast of Jimbaran, just south of the airport, and deep enough not to disturb the ecology there, according to BWS.<\/p>\n

But Made Krisna Dinata, the head of environmental non-governmental organisation Wahana Lingkungan, has major concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will destroy the fishes\u2019 breeding ground,\u201d he says. \u201cFor the sake of more tourists, the environment has been sacrificed, and it will continue to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is unlikely that Bali governments will watch on as Kuta Beach fails. It is too important, too iconic, not to act. But Mother Nature is another matter.<\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"ZachZach Hope<\/a> is South-East Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter at the Brisbane Times.Connect via email<\/a>.\"AmiliaAmilia Rosa<\/a> is assistant Indonesia correspondent.Connect via X<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 22, 2026 \u2014 1:45pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-556313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}