Bali's subak cultural landscape: what UNESCO inscribed

What was inscribed

In 2012, at its 36th session in Saint Petersburg, the World Heritage Committee inscribed the "Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy" on the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape, on criteria (iii), (v) and (vi).[1]

What UNESCO inscribed is a system, not a view. The decision's Statement of Outstanding Universal Value says that rice, "the water that sustains it, and subak, the cooperative social system that controls the water, have together shaped the landscape over the past thousand years and are an integral part of religious life". It lists the parts of a subak as "the forests that protect the water supply, terraced paddy landscape, rice fields connected by a system of canals, tunnels and weirs, villages, and temples of varying size and importance that mark either the source of water or its passage through the temple on its way downhill".[1] Terraces are one part of five.

Subak and the water temples

The decision describes water temples as "the focus of a cooperative management of water resource by a group of subaks", and says that "since the 11th century the water temple networks have managed the ecology of rice terraces at the scale of whole watersheds". It counts "about 1,200 water collectives" in Bali, with between 50 and 400 farmers managing the supply from one water source, and notes that most subaks have written codes, awig-awig, setting out the rights and responsibilities of membership. It calls the system "democratic and egalitarian".[1]

Bali's tourism office gives one local trace of the institution's age. Its page on Goa Gajah reads an inscription of the year 944 Saka as naming "ser ring Air Gajah", the subak leader at Air Gajah, and so placing the Lwa Gajah hermitage within Subak Air Gajah.[8] That is the office's reading of an inscription, not part of the World Heritage decision, and Goa Gajah is not named among the inscribed sites.

Tri Hita Karana

The decision says the subak system "exemplifies the Balinese philosophical principle of Tri Hita Karana that draws together the realms of the spirit, the human world and nature", and that water temple rituals "promote a harmonious relationship between people and their environment". Under criterion (iii) it dates the concept's shaping of the landscape to "at least the 12th century"; under criterion (vi) it says Bali's water temples have drawn for more than a thousand years on "Saivasiddhanta and Samkhyā Hinduism, Vajrayana Buddhism and Austronesian cosmology".[1]

The concept is used well beyond the rice fields. Bali's tourism office presents the woodcarving village of Mas in Ubud district as an expression of Tri Hita Karana, "harmonious life between people and God, between people, and between people and the natural environment".[9] The Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud states its conservation mission in the same terms, translating the phrase as "Three ways to reach spiritual and physical well-being".[10]

The components the decision names

The decision says "The property consists of five sites", then names them in one sentence:[1]

• the Supreme Water Temple of Pura Ulun Danu Batur, on the edge of Lake Batur, "whose crater lake is regarded as the ultimate origin of every spring and river";
• the Subak Landscape of the Pakerisan Watershed, "the oldest known irrigation system in Bali";
• the Subak Landscape of Catur Angga Batukaru, "with terraces mentioned in a 10th century inscription making them amongst the oldest in Bali and prime examples of Classical Balinese temple architecture";
• the Royal Water temple of Pura Taman Ayun, "the largest and most architecturally distinguished regional water temple", exemplifying the fullest expansion of the subak system under the largest Balinese kingdom of the 19th century.

That sentence names four entries for five sites. XTOUR does not supply the fifth from other sources, and it does not list the villages, subaks or temples inside each landscape, because the decision text it read does not.

Names that sound close, but are not in the text

Several familiar places share a name, a mountain or a river with a component. The decision names none of them, and XTOUR does not infer membership from the overlap.

Jatiluwih. Bali's tourism office lists the Jatiluwih terraces in Penebel, Tabanan, and says they lie "right at the foot of the Batukaru mountain"; its page does not mention UNESCO.[4][3] The decision names a Catur Angga Batukaru landscape, and separately says rice terraces within the sites are protected by a Tabanan Regency decree, but it does not name Jatiluwih.[1] A shared mountain is not a boundary, so XTOUR does not say whether Jatiluwih lies inside the component.

Tegallalang. The tourism office's page on the Ceking terraces at Tegallalang, in Gianyar, describes a traditional rice field built on a river bank, with its own water system, and does not mention UNESCO.[6] The decision does not name Tegallalang.[1]

Gunung Kawi. The office says the rock-cut shrines of Gunung Kawi overlook "Bali's sacred Pakerisan River".[7] The decision names a Pakerisan Watershed landscape but lists no temples or sites inside it.[1] XTOUR does not treat a site on the river as part of the component.

Ulun Danu Beratan. Two temples share the name Ulun Danu. The tourism office describes Ulun Danu Beratan, "the source temple of Lake Beratan", in Candikuning village, Baturiti district, Tabanan Regency.[5] The decision's supreme water temple is a different one, Pura Ulun Danu Batur on Lake Batur.[1]

Pura Taman Ayun's dates

On Pura Taman Ayun, the sources answer different questions. Bali's tourism office says Raja Mengwi I Gusti Agung Putu built it "pada tahun 1556 Saka (1634 M)", in 1634 CE, as a temple of the Mengwi kings' ancestors in Mengwi village, Badung Regency, and that in 2002 the Bali government proposed it to UNESCO for the World Heritage List.[2] The decision gives no building date; it ties the temple to the fullest expansion of the subak system under the largest Balinese kingdom of the 19th century.[1] The two statements are not in conflict, but they are not the same claim, and XTOUR does not merge them.

Protection, and the pressure the decision describes

The decision lists the legal protection in place at inscription: a 2008 provincial decree on conservation and spatial planning for the sites, a provincial regulation of 2005 on zoning protected sacred sites according to local awig-awig, a Tabanan Regency decree of 2005 protecting rice terraces within the sites against large-scale tourism development, the national cultural heritage law of 1992, and a Governing Assembly created in 2010 that gives subak members a role in managing the sites.[1]

It is also direct about vulnerability. It says none of the components is under threat, but "the terraced landscape is highly vulnerable to a range of social and economic changes, such as changes in agricultural practices and increasing tourism pressures", that the setting of the sites "is fragile and under pressure from development particularly associated with tourism", and that "in a few cases some adverse development has already occurred". Among its recommendations to Indonesia was "creating low-key site specific information to raise awareness of the subak system".[1]

XTOUR has not read any later state-of-conservation report on the property and makes no statement about its condition today.

Visiting

The components are working places: the decision calls all of them "living sites still in heavy and continuous use by the local community".[1] Several are temples, and the provincial rules on entering a pura are in Bali temple rules as the provincial government states them. XTOUR does not give opening times, fees or routes for any component, and it does not treat any component as inside an XTOUR destination: Ubud as a base in Bali covers what a base on Bali does and does not contain. For the country overview, see Indonesia.