Summary - How Forgetting Changes a Landscape: Bali's ecological Futures
A conversation with Sayu Komang on seeds, ritual, and Bali's ecological futures
Five highlights
The biggest change in Bali is disconnection — not pollution, not development. It is the severing of the thread between people, land, and livelihood. Everything else flows from there.
Rituals have become hollow — not because Balinese people are less devoted but their actions lack the embodied meaning, and because the offerings are now bought from supermarkets instead of local flowers and elements.
Seeds are medicine, ceremony, and memory — they hold all five elements, just as the earth does, just as the womb does. Losing a seed is not just losing a plant. It is losing a way of knowing.
Coping with anxiety. Trust your intuition, trust your feelings, and be less in your head. Start with planting indigenous seed. This is lived philosophy.
Women are the ecological memory of Bali. Traditionally, they kept seeds above the fire — in the Langgatan, the shelf in the kitchen where warmth and care lived. Harming the earth harms women. Healing the earth begins with women.
Emerging Earth Bali Residency is open for application:
Emerging Earth is a four-day co-living residency designed for people who want to live the Tri Hita Karana. To develop intuition, and weave this energy into a vision for Bali using Futures Thinking.
Location: Batukaru Coffee Estate
Dates: August 19–23, 2026
Capacity: 10 participants
Early bird pricing: Available until July 1
Apply and learn more: emergingearth.world
About Sayu Komang
Sayu Komang is a permaculture practitioner, community educator, and regenerative agriculture advocate with more than 23 years working alongside farmers, foragers, and local communities as Bali’s landscape transformed around them. She is the spokesperson for Bibit Pusaka Bali, a Slow Food Community of women farmers dedicated to cultivating and preserving Bali’s native seeds.
The Conversation
The summary is a condensed version of the full conversation with light embellishing with the help of AI to make it more readable.
On the changes Bali has undergone
Made: Looking at Bali today — what are the most significant environmental changes you have witnessed over 20 years of working in this field?
Sayu: The biggest isn’t flooding, or garbage, or disappearing rice fields — though all of those are important. The biggest change is massive disconnection. We have lost our connection with our land, with our people, with our ancestors. And from that first loss, everything else unravels.
In Bali we have the philosophy of Tri Hita Karana — the three harmonies between people, nature, and the spiritual. We have the subak irrigation system, built on that same philosophy. But today, we remember these as rituals, without embodying the meaning. Our elders still practice the spirit of them, but for most people it has become ritual without depth. And when ritual empties of meaning, it begins to loose effect. Our offerings now contain plastic and synthetic materials, because we have disconnected from the land that used to provide them. We no longer cultivate our offering materials — we buy them from markets, from supermarkets. The ritual is not only harmful to the environment. It is harmful to our pockets, because everything now has a price.
On where the knowledge gap opens
Made: Where is the main point where the gap between the elders and the next generation opens? Where do people start knowing the words of Tri Hita Karana but stop embodying them?
Sayu: The gap is in the meaning behind the form. When we teach the Chanang Sari — our daily offering — we teach which flowers to use, which leaves, which arrangement. But we have stopped teaching what the offering is. The Chanang Sari is not about specific flowers. It is about the five elements of the universe. It is about what your land gives you. The traditional teaching is: use what the earth offers you right now, in this season, in this place. But we have lost that relationship to land, so we reach for the big hybrid marigold from the market — beautiful, uniform, disconnected.
On what regeneration actually means
Made: From your perspective — working on the ground, not only in theory — what does regeneration actually mean? How is it different from sustainability?
Sayu: For me,Regeneration is the action. It is what we actually do. Sustainability is the bridge. Sustainability says: let’s maintain what we have, let’s reduce the harm. Regeneration says: do something now, something you can touch.
I am not asking people to become farmers. Regeneration can start with a single seed. Keep your local seeds. Share them with a neighbour. When you save a seed, you understand how that plant grows, how it nourishes the soil, how it feeds your body, how it reduces your cost. Everything is connected. The seed is not just agriculture — it is philosophy made practical.
And regeneration must be active, not passive. We are talking about what you can do now — not what you wish were different.
On communities already living this
Made: Can you share examples of communities or initiatives that already demonstrate regeneration in practice?
Sayu: Bibit Pusaka Bali is one. It is deliberately small — a small group of women in Bali, coming together around seeds. You do not need a legal entity, a large budget, or a formal structure. Five to ten people in your village or neighbourhood, doing seed-saving from your garden, organising a seed swap, sharing agroecology knowledge. That is the whole model.
But what makes it work is culture. When I am working with indigenous communities — not only in Bali, but across Indonesia — the crucial foundation is always local culture, local wisdom. Culture is the DNA of regeneration. You can do regeneration without local culture, but it will have no roots, no character, nothing unique. And every community has its own culture, its own local wisdom. That is where you start.
In Bibit Pusaka Bali, we enter through ceremonial plants, because in Bali that is where the interest is. We come in through ceremony — a door that is already open. Once people are inside, we open the next door: food plants, medicinal plants, the family garden. We follow the culture.
On seeds as practice and as therapy
Made: Do people actually plant the seeds they receive? What do you find happening in the field?
Sayu: Seeds are our soul. Seeds are life. The challenge is real — most people do not have the passion for seed saving. But I do. I love cleaning seeds. I love meditating with seeds, working through the tiny ones with my hands. When people bring me a fruit and say it is too difficult to process, I say thank you — I am genuinely happy to have it. And from that small act, friendships have grown. People come to my house. We hold seed-saving events. Young people who struggle with mental health are finding that cleaning seeds is a kind of therapy. You use your hands. You taste the pulp. You smell the earth. You watch something move from fruit to seed to soil to plant.
On where to start if you feel overwhelmed
Made: Many people on this call are not farmers — they are educators, designers, artists, practitioners. What can someone start with, regardless of their profession or where they are?
Sayu: Most people today use only their head. So the first step is to reconnect with your feeling. Trust your intuition, trust your feelings. It doesnt have to be logical.
From there: if you have land, start a small garden. Even one seed. Plant it, watch it grow, produce flowers, produce fruit. The feeling is different. Something shifts.
If you want to go further: join a local community. Find out what indigenous knowledge your village or neighbourhood has forgotten, and start asking — what are the traditional foods, which wild plants are still growing? Come to the traditional market and talk to the farmers directly.
And when you get sick — try the wild plant before you try the pharmacy. Wild plants carry the greatest life force. They are often the best medicine. Start there. Start small. Start now.
Audience Questions & Answers
On indigenous seed banks
Diya Pinto asked: Does Bali or Indonesia have an indigenous seed bank — private or government? If we wanted to get indigenous seeds to grow in our garden, where can we get them from?
Sayu: The Indonesian government currently only has regulation and infrastructure for hybrid seeds. There is no formal seed bank for indigenous varieties that I am aware of. The place to start is the Bibit Pusaka Bali WhatsApp group — we share information there regularly about ceremonial plants, food plants, and medicinal plants. Come to the seed swap. And come find me.
On how many rice varieties Bali has
Jenny Pinto asked: How many traditional rice varieties does Bali have? And how many are still being cultivated today?
Sayu: Based on what my father, who comes from a farming family, has told me, there were around 12 kinds of traditional rice in Bali. Now only around four or five still exist, and even those are very difficult to find.
In Bali, almost 90% of agriculture, especially market farming, is dominated by hybrid seeds with chemical inputs. Only about 10% still use local seed varieties, especially on small-scale family farms, which are usually only for family consumption or home-based ceremonies.
On women, ecological harm, and grief
Jessica Blume asked: How does ecological harm disproportionately impact women? How are women central in ecological resistance movements? And how do regeneration movements help people cope with ecological grief and hopelessness?
Sayu: Women have always been the seed keepers. In Bali, it was the mothers and grandmothers who stored the heirloom seeds above the wood fire in the kitchen — in a shelf called the Langgatan — where warmth kept the seeds safe and dry. The indigenous seeds I find in remote areas across Indonesia are almost always introduced to me by women.
The connection runs deeper than tradition. Seeds carry all five elements — earth, water, fire, air, and ether. The earth carries all four. And the womb — the seat of life in a woman’s body — holds the same. When you harm the earth, you harm women. That is not metaphor. It is a direct relationship. Every act of ecological damage lands in the bodies and lives of women first.
And for grief — for the hopelessness many of us feel when we look at what is happening — I come back to the seed. Something small enough to hold in your palm. Something alive. Something that continues. The act of saving a seed, cleaning it, sharing it with someone — that is not only ecological practice. It is a practice for the soul.
Yuka asked: As a local Balinese person, it is often difficult to find places to learn about traditional knowledge. What can we do to make it more accessible — especially for Balinese people themselves — so we don’t just know the rituals but understand their core meaning?
For me, a good place to learn about traditional knowledge is by reconnecting with the elders in the village, or by talking to the women who make offerings (we call them SERATI). They possess traditional knowledge not only about ceremonial plants but also their connection to medicine and food.
Jessica asked: How do regeneration movements specifically help people cope with ecological grief and chronic crisis?
Several methods can be used:
Action-Based Therapy (Regenerative Practices) involves directly engaging in the restoration of Mother Earth, such as reconnect with your food and building local food sufficiency through local seed, gardening, tree-planting, and composting (providing a sense of control). This counters feelings of helplessness and replaces them with a tangible sense of hope that individuals can contribute positively to nature.
Reconnection Therapy and Community Rituals: This movement encourages the creation of a supportive community and celebrates the rhythms of nature together. This reduces the isolation that often accompanies climate anxiety, allowing individuals to process emotions amidst solid social support. Building a connection to self and community can be done through seed meditation.
View of Life Change Therapy (Ecocentrism) : Use our Hearth, love and feeling to connect with nature. We are part of universe it self. This can Through education, discussion and sharing, the regeneration movement helps people see themselves as part of an interdependent ecosystem. This transforms grief over environmental damage into motivation to live in harmony with natural cycles.
Resources & Connections
Bibit Pusaka Bali — community seed-saving group for Bali
Join the WhatsApp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/CMEtDIE9VfHAkSyDr5YCKE
Become a member: http://bit.ly/KeanggotaanBibitPusakaBali
Seed swap: Every Saturday morning, Earth Market Ubud, Pizza Bagus terrace, 9:30am–1pm
About the Emerging Earth Residency
August 19–23, 2026 · Batukaru Coffee Estate, Bali · 10 spots
Sayu emphasised that regeneration starts with reconnecting with your feeling, trusting your intuition, even when it is not logical. Most of us live in our heads, its time to get into our bodies.
That is also the premise of the Emerging Earth Bali Residency.
Emerging Earth is a four-day residency at the Batukaru Coffee Estate. It is designed for people who want to reimagine their relationship with the earth, develop intuition, and bring this energy into action for Balu using Futures Thinking.
The programme follows a specific arc:
Day 1 — Bali Connection (led by Made): Forest foraging, conversations with local wisdom holders, understanding the subak system and Tri Hita Karana as living practice not just theory.
Day 2 — Stillness & Intuition (led by Diya): Slowing down enough to actually listen to yourself, to the land, to what is asking for attention beneath the noise
Days 3 & 4 — Futures & Creation: Using futures-thinking to take everything gathered — the knowledge, the stillness, the reconnection — and move it into form. A personal practice. A vision for Bali.
Dates: August 19–23, 2026
Location: Batukaru Coffee Estate
Capacity: 10 participants
Early bird pricing: Available until July 1
Apply and learn more: emergingearth.world
Organised by Light Forest. With deep gratitude to Sayu Komang and Made Masak for the wisdom they shared.