November 21, 2009
UTNE READER

Golf war syndrome

(Page 2 of 2)

March/April 1996
By Elaine Robbins, Utne Reader 
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It's not just land that is being gobbled up; these courses are diverting precious water resources to keep their fairways green. In Indonesia, a major drought in 1994 caused wells to run dry, and farmers were not able to plant a second crop. But, as Adreas Harsano and Hidayat Jati report in the Jakarta Post (May 9, 1994), Jakarta's golf courses continued to receive 1,000 cubic meters of water per course per day--enough to meet the daily water needs of 1,000 families, according to Saleh Abdullah of the Network for Forest Conservation in Indonesia.

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This massive diversion of resources for a game that provides recreation mainly for the wealthy has fueled a backlash that has led to local protests. In Hawaii, another paradisiacal playground preferred by Japanese golfers, a group of farmers protested their eviction from land they had tilled for 50 years in the Maunawili Valley. And villagers in Tepoztlan, Mexico, took over the town hall to win a temporary halt of plans to build a half-billion-dollar golf course and condo development on their forested hills. In Japan, where the Global Anti-Golf Movement (GAG'M) acts as a clearinghouse for various opposition groups, protests have caused several hundred courses to suspend operations. This resistance in the land of golf fever may be the clearest indication that the little white ball is not destined to rule the world.

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