16th World Lake Conference
7 – 11 November 2016, Bali, Indonesia

Lake Ecosystem Health and Its Resilience: Diversity and Risks of Extinction

BALI DECLARATIONINTRODUCTION
Water is a fundamental requirement for all life, unifying all living organisms, flora, faunaand humans. Lakes, reservoirs, wetlands and other lentic water systems represent themost important sources of freshwater, with lakes and wetlands collectively containing
more than 95% of the liquid freshwater on the surface of our planet. The essential role offreshwater in mainstreaming the aquatic and terrestrial landscape that provide lifesupporting ecosystem services, diversity and health is also fundamental to humanexistence. However, the global distribution of this fundamental resource is uneven, andour human water demands are growing faster than our capacity to address the negative
impacts resulting from multiple needs of water for food production, industrial processes,
human, domestic and wildlife consumption, navigation, hydropower and other uses. The
result is serious alternation of freshwater ecosystems, environmental degradation, local
climate modification, and other anthropogenic changes, collectively leading to such waterrelated disasters as large-scale land subsidence and drastically changed river morphology,
sometimes bringing about droughts and floods of unprecedented magnitude.
Lakes are facing multiple stresses on their environments, including increasing effluentsfrom point and nonpoint sources, artificial alterations of lake basins, excessive water use,
invasions of alien organisms, global climate change, and changes in human priorities.
These stresses have resulted in significant degradation of the life-supporting ecosystemservices provided by these freshwater bodies. Lakes, reservoirs, wetlands and other lentic
water systems are the last frontiers in the survival and resilience of our society, in thatthey provide us not only with freshwater resources and other ecosystem services, but thehealth of lake ecosystems reflect how we value our present civilization and the future
wealth and conditions for our descendants.
Against this background, the 16th World Lake Conference, held in Southeast Asia for the
first time in the beautiful island of Bali, Indonesia, has chosen the theme, “Lake1

Ecosystem Health and Its Resilience: Diversity and the Risk of Extinction.” To betterrelate the Bali World Lake Conference discussions and conclusions, multiple actions areneeded to address an increasing wave of environmental degradation and overexploitationof lakes, reservoirs and other lentic water systems, particularly in Indonesia and othercountries around the world.

PREAMBLE
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Realizing that lakes and other lentic water systems provide the widest range ofaquatic ecosystem services essential for human livelihoods, health and well-being,
including resource provision services (drinking water supply, agricultural irrigation,
fisheries, recreation, transportation, hydropower generation), regulating services(flood and drought mitigation, self-purification, climate mediation, shoreline ecotone
buffering, diverse food-chains) and cultural services (aesthetics, spiritual,anthropogenic and historical values);
Noting that the ecological integrity of many lakes and reservoirs around the world
has been altered in recent decades through the modification of hydrology and fluxesof pollutants;
Recognizing that aquatic ecosystems are typically part of a larger network of linked
upstream and downstream lentic and lotic water systems;
Acknowledging that on the basis of their basin characteristics, transboundary lakes
exhibit great human water security and biodiversity threats;
Noting that human activities in a lake will have impacts on the environmental andsocioeconomic aspects of the lake, and that proper ordinances related to lake
operations and resource extraction should be developed and appropriately
disseminated so that lake stakeholders will have thorough knowledge andunderstanding of the importance of lakes in human lives and for making informedlake management decisions; andRealizing that cultural values can play vital roles in lake management, but thatseveral interrelated factors that include motivation, communication, commitment,consistent participation of communities, proper mentoring, and decisiveness of thelocal government is necessary for successful implementation.

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The participants at the 16th World Lake Conference reached the following
consensus:
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There is a need to better understand lake ecosystem processes to shape effective andsustainable management strategies;
In term of lake management, social network analysis can help identify existing socialstructures and possible intervention points for increasing the problem-solving capacityof governance networks;
Maintaining forest cover and land use management is essential to reduce
sedimentation, with the areas contributing most to sedimentation should be priority
areas for rehabilitation;
Domestic wastewaters should be treated before these effluents are discharged intolakes and reservoirs, and that such treatment can be facilitated by integrated
wastewater treatment plants built by the government;
Introduction of exotic and invasive species is a major problem threatening fish
diversity, including endemic species in lakes of several countries, examples being Lake
Biwa in Japan, Lake Lanao in the Philippines, and Lake Matano in Indonesia, andefficient and effective actions are needed for their possible eradication;
Local wisdom can also play an important role in lake management, examples being
the Tri Hita Karana of Balinese Hindhu philosophy, and help illustrate the relationshipbetween people to people, people to nature and people to gods;
Because unsustainable aquaculture practices negatively influence lake water quality,
implementation of rules to address this issue should be developed and enforced;
Children and the young generation should be made aware of the importance of theaquatic ecosystems and undertake actions to clean their lakes and maintain healthy
environments;
Ecohydrology, ecotechnology and palaeolimnology can play valuable roles inaddressing many lake issues including risk management and disaster preparedness;
Spatial, temporal and online monitoring of lake ecosystems and their services are very
important;Since they fundamentally affect one another, lentic (standing water) and lotic (flowingwater) water management should be addressed with an integrated approach such asIntegrated Lentic-Lotic Basin Management (ILLBM), which is also consistent with many
objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
Science-based conservation taxes can play important roles in supporting efforts toimprove lake water quality, such as that exemplified by Lake Kasumigaura in Japan;

3and agreed to make the following specific recommendations:
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Achievement of ecosystem health must be emphasized and ensured as the main goalin utilization of lakes by government, local communities, industry, agriculture andother stakeholders;
For Indonesian conditions, it is important to have fundamental regulations andpropose specific bodies for coordinating lake management, with concrete actions for
15 priority lakes being needed to cover zoning regulations, assess carrying capacity
and alternative livelihoods for local communities;
It is important to have public-private partnerships in lake management, including
sustainable financial support;
To prevent invasive species threats, national and local legislation can play importantroles through authorization of government financial support and facilitation of publicparticipation;.
Integrated Lentic-Lotic Basin Management (ILLBM) should be promoted as a usefulconceptual framework to complement the conventional Integrated Water Resource
Management (IWRM) and Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) frameworks for
managing aquatic ecosystem;
Collaborative research, both nationally and internationally, should be strongly pursued
to develop accurate and useful databases, particularly for tropical inland watersystems;
Regional networks for collaborative research should be developed to increaseknowledge and promote sharing of experiences in managing lake basins;
Direct all the above actions in some manner toward achieving the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) that related to lakes and lentic-lotic water systems;
As for the need to accelerate international cooperation in lake basin management in
Asia, those having been successfully pursued over the past decades on various
subjects between Indonesia and Japan provide many useful hints for futurecollaborations.

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