A Decade of Surf Tourism in the Mentawais

Posted on January 24, 2007 @ 3:17 PM

THE AID WORKER

Dr. Dave Jenkins is one figure in the whole Mentawai
surfing scene without a vested interest, other than the
reduction of disease and suffering among the Mentawai
people. The organization he founded six years ago,
SurfAid International, is widely acknowledged as the
main positive to come out of surf tourism for the local population. SurfAid has successfully reduced malaria
by up to 75% in its first two pilot villages and has since
spread its operations throughout the islands and beyond.

Ironically, and unintentionally, it is partly SurfAid’s
work in reducing malaria that has made the whole
prospect of land camps in the Mentawais more achievable.
Predictably, land developers claim the threat of malaria in the islands was always overstated by a surf charter industry
intent on keeping visiting surfers off land and on boats. But Dr.
Dave says, although the overall situation has improved, there is
still the very real threat of malaria.

“If surfers are staying near SurfAid target villages then,
yes, the risk of getting malaria has and will continue to reduce
thanks to the success of our projects,” he says. “However,
until such time that the place is malaria-free then on-land
surfers should be sensible and careful. They should consult
their doctor about using preventative medicines such as
Malarone and Doxyclcine and always use an insecticide-treated
mosquito net. If they are staying a long time they should carry
a rapid diagnostic test kit and ACT, the new treatment for
cerebral malaria.”

SurfAid’s main focus, however, is the wellbeing of the
long suffering locals. “SurfAid wants the best for the people. In
some ways we are a voice for them. I think the best chance for
the people to benefit is via a ‘Joint and Co-operative Tourism
Agreement’ between the various stakeholders,” he says.

Dr. Dave points to a meeting organized by Conservation
International for all stakeholders in the Mentawai surf industry
in September as a positive sign. “Conservational International
are very interested in creating an ‘Eco Marine Reserve’ in
the Mentawais and their eco-tourism guidelines hold the
best framework I’ve seen to date that could genuinely result
in a win/win for all. They have proven it can work and we
should at the very least listen to their plans and encourage all
stakeholders to do so. I have no doubt that SurfAid can make a
very significant contribution to the whole plan. We are currently
planning a ‘malaria-free Mentawai project’ with the distribution
of mosquito nets to over 80% of all Mentawai people.”

Without such centralized planning, Dr. Dave says surf
tourism in the Mentawais could easily follow the destructive
pattern set elsewhere in the world. “Without the above I find it
hard to see anything constructive planned and therefore it will
continue to develop in whatever form – probably more boats,
resorts, more crowds, more tensions and little added benefit
to the people.”

The locals, he says, are becoming increasingly concerned
about the impact surfing could have on their islands. “We
recently spent a lot of time speaking to the people on this issue
in surf areas such as Katiet. They want surfing, they want jobs,
but want respect for their culture. They don’t like nakedness or
even small shorts and bare chests walking through their villages.
They are especially worried about new diseases like Aids and
prostitutes arriving.”

After some initial hesitation, the surf industry seems
squarely behind SurfAid’s efforts in the Mentawais. “The
resort owners to date all seem keen to help with community
development ... Thanks to the support of the surfing industry
SurfAid is having a growing impact. We shall significantly help
nearly all of the 200 villages in the Mentawai in the coming
years. It’s our full intention to ensure that surfing via SurfAid
and other activities becomes one of the very best things that ever
happened for the people of the Mentawais. There’s no doubt in
my mind that we have that potential.”

THE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM CONSULTANT

Jess Ponting is one of the surfing world’s leading authorities on
sustainable tourism and is completing a PhD on the Mentawai
surf tourism industry. He is currently lecturing at the University
of the South Pacific in Fiji, but continues to advocate for
sustainable tourism in the Mentawais.

“There is an entire body of knowledge, case studies and
examples, entire academic journals dedicated to figuring out
how tourism, with careful planning, can achieve this,” says Jess.
“I can’t understand why surfing tourism seems to continually
progress blindfolded, refusing to learn from its mistakes or the
mistakes of others.”

As a keen and well-traveled surfer, his studies have
eventually brought him around to some confronting views.
“Painful as it has been as a surfer who has spent literally years
(several) in dirt-floored losmen, bures, fales, etc, I have had to
come to the point of respecting the right of resource owners
to decide who uses their resources. The major concern of the
surfing fraternity over the years seems to have been free access
to waves above all else. The Mentawai situation is the end
result of that logic – outsiders have devised the best and most
convenient way to extract value from a surfing resource with
a minimum of interaction with the resource owners, and a
minimum flow of foreign exchange to those resource owners.”

In many ways, he says, we have simply taken advantage
of the situation in the Mentawais because of the absence of a
tradition of reef ownership.

“In Papua New Guinea reef owners are paid a fee for
allowing surfers access to their reefs. In Fiji the rights of reef
resource-owners are enshrined in law. Whether this extends
to surfing is up for debate but in practice we all know about
Tavarua. The Frigates Passage landowners charge surfers a fee,
Nagigia Resort on Kadavu have negotiated controlled access with
landowners and several other surf resorts are in the pipeline
with similar controls negotiated with resource owners. It leaves
a bad taste for the surfing purist to be prevented from just
rocking up under your own steam and paddling out. However, I
think we need to take a step back and view the bigger picture. In
many cases these are extremely poor communities with limited
means of achieving development through the resources available
to them ... The important thing to remember is that it’s not up to
us to decide what type of development is best for the Mentawais.

The Mentawai people must be empowered to decide what is best
for themselves ... They have the world’s most concentrated, high
quality and most consistent surf fields set amongst the dictionary
definition of what paradise looks like to most westerners – a
monumentally valuable resource. Managed carefully it could
provide the economic base for community development in
the islands. Managed poorly, the whole thing could turn to shit.
But I think we as surfers need to recognize that it’s about them,
not about us.”

Jess conducted numerous interviews with locals about
their attitudes towards surfing for his PhD and uncovered some
interesting views. “Some said they didn’t care if the surf was crowded (why should they?), only the surf companies cared,
and they weren’t giving anything to the locals anyway. Another
said that surf tourism was (and I quote) ‘killing the locals’
because the resorts were buying land at a one-off price which
villagers had spent within a year and they were left with no
land to live on or on which to plant coconuts. In this respect the
Fijian model of long term leases probably works better. Pretty
much every Mentawaian I interviewed advocated joint ventures
between villages and resort developers rather than outright
purchases of land and an enclave approach to resort building.

In reality though you won’t get major investors to come on
board under these circumstances. None of the Mentawaians I
interviewed were impressed by the charter industry. Many used
similar language in describing how the Mentawai people were
sick of being ‘watchers’. Watching tourists come and go on boats
with no idea how they can get involved in the tourism industry.”

The principles of sustainable tourism provide very specific
guidelines about the nature of any land-based development
– from waste disposal to water treatment, power generation
to packaging, cleaning products to building materials to
architectural styles – guidelines that only the most ethically
motivated developers are likely to follow. “Employing all the
best systems is expensive but vital. Making some allowances
for being in a fragile environment will also be important – you
don’t need plunge pools for each room really, do you? Nice but
hardly necessary. Ensuring building materials are gathered from
sustainable sources i.e. timber not cut from the mangroves out
the front or illegally logged from Sipora, and cement not made
from coral blasted off the reef out front for that purpose.”

And who among the surf tourism operators, or surf
tourists for that matter, is brave enough to really stop and
consider the social and cultural impacts of surfing on remote
island communities, where surfing is far and away the biggest
outside influence on traditional lifestyles, and impressionable
youth are likely to be easily made over in our own modern
western image?

“Already there are noticeable changes, particularly in the
Katiet community which is now very much a surf town,” says
Jess. “This is influencing the youth and even the structure of
the village which has moved out to the surf, and certainly the
employment of villagers, many of whom, as you know, sell
carvings to tourists from canoes ... Often village kids get the
idea that surfers spend their whole lives bumming around in
surf camps smoking pot, drinking, whoring, etc. I guess some
do but at the risk of moralizing, these are not the aspirations
that we should be encouraging to impressionable village youth.
Are they?”

NOTE: The author sought the opinions of several local Mentawai
people involved in the surf tourism industry and in the local
government, but with the difficulties of communication with
the islands, we were unable to get a response in time for this
article. We will try and represent the views of the local people
in a future article.

There are also numerous other experienced skippers and
other figures involved in the Mentawai surfing industry who
we were unable to contact in time for this article. We welcome
further correspondence on this issue and encourage more
discussion of how surfing can be a positive force, rather than a
destructive one, in the Mentawai Islands.

As preposterous as it sounds, Tim Baker has been a surfing writer for 20 years,
and now even manages to support a family through this elaborate sham. He has
edited Australia’s Surfing Life and Tracks magazines, has written a couple of
books, is working on a couple of others and is even going to have a fancy new
website soon: http://www.bytimbaker.com. He was also recently invited to the Byron
Bay Writer’s Festival, where he entertained the literati with a bit of rough-edged
surfer humour. Close followers of his work reckon he has sold out and prefer his
early stuff.

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