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Schedule a meeting now! Get advice from our admission expert Katharina. Request a spot in our meeting hub and we will call you back!
Refer a friend - Save 100€! Refer a friend, enroll together for this summer school, and save both 100 Euro! Refer a friend!
Study in Bali ! See our latest Sport Short Courses Programs
Schedule a meeting now! Get advice from our admission expert Katharina. Request a spot in our meeting hub and we will call you back!
Refer a friend - Save 100€! Refer a friend, enroll together for this summer school, and save both 100 Euro! Refer a friend!
Study in Bali ! See our latest Sport Short Courses Programs
Upskill Study summer course field lecture report
Learning About Biodiversity and Conservation in Bali: From Lagoon to Sea
4 minutes reading
What does sustainable development look like when viewed through the habitats of the species that share an increasingly developed island?
During the Sustainable Development and Ecotourism Summer Course at Udayana University, students move beyond classroom discussions to examine environmental questions directly in the places where they are unfolding. A field lecture combining bird observation at the ITDC Lagoon in Nusa Dua with a visit to the Turtle Conservation and Education Center in Serangan offered two very different perspectives on the relationship between biodiversity, human activity, and conservation in Bali.
Led by Dr. A.A.G. Raka Dalem, the field lecture asked students to observe wildlife not simply as visitors, but as part of an academic exercise: identifying species, understanding habitats, and considering the environmental conditions necessary for wildlife to survive alongside tourism and urban development.
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Dr. Raka with students at the ITDC Lagoon, sharing his knowledge of birdwatching and the species inhabiting the lagoon ecosystem.
Reading an Environment Through Its Birds
The morning began at the ITDC Lagoon in Nusa Dua, where students were introduced to bird observation through both sight and sound.
Rather than immediately searching the trees and water for visible species, students first learned to listen. Bird calls became an entry point into understanding the biodiversity around them, while binoculars and a monocular allowed the group to observe species from a distance without unnecessarily disturbing their habitat.
Students were tasked with identifying and counting the birds they encountered, turning the walk into a simple field-based biodiversity survey. With guidance from Dr. Raka and support from Upskill's bird enthusiast, Widi, they began documenting the different species present around the lagoon.
The exercise introduced an important principle of environmental study: before ecosystems can be discussed in terms of conservation, they first need to be observed and understood.
The location itself added another dimension to the lesson. The lagoon exists within one of Bali's major tourism areas, placing wildlife habitat alongside hotels, landscaped environments, infrastructure, and significant human activity.
Students also learned about the lagoon's water-management function. Water from the surrounding area passes through a system of drainage and treatment before being reused for purposes including irrigation of vegetation. This made the site particularly relevant to a course examining sustainable development and ecotourism. The landscape could not be understood simply as "nature" or "development." It represented a space where the two continually interact.
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The ITDC Lagoon in Nusa Dua, a living habitat where biodiversity, water management, and tourism development intersect.
From Habitat Observation to Wildlife Conservation
Later that day, the focus shifted from birds and their habitat to marine wildlife at the Turtle Conservation and Education Center in Serangan.
Guided by Bli Wayan, students learned about turtles undergoing care at the center and the different circumstances that had brought them there. Some required treatment for injuries, while others needed time and care before they could safely return to their natural environment.
An important distinction emerged during the visit: a conservation center is not intended to become a permanent home for wild animals.
Rehabilitation is ultimately connected to return. The objective is to support turtles until they are able to go back to the ocean whenever this is possible.
This became tangible when the students participated in the release of baby turtles. Before the hatchlings entered the water, the group discussed why responsible release involves more than simply placing turtles on a beach. Timing, surrounding environmental conditions, and the location itself all matter.
The release was therefore not treated only as a memorable activity. It became another opportunity to examine what responsible conservation requires in practice.
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Wayan from TCEC sharing his extensive knowledge of sea turtles, their life cycle, rehabilitation, and conservation.
Connecting Land, Water, and Sea
Bringing these two sites into one field lecture created a wider ecological perspective.
At the lagoon, students considered birds and the conditions that allow them to inhabit an environment shaped partly by tourism development. In Serangan, they examined marine conservation and the challenges of protecting species whose survival depends on healthy coastal and ocean ecosystems.
Different species occupy different environments, but those environments are not isolated.
Water quality, vegetation, coastal conditions, waste, tourism infrastructure, human behavior, and habitat management can influence ecological systems far beyond a single site. Looking at birds in a lagoon and turtles returning to the ocean therefore raises a shared question: how can development take place while maintaining the environmental conditions other species depend upon? That question sits at the heart of studying sustainable development.
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Students receiving instructions before observing and recording the bird and animal species inhabiting the lagoon, with their field observations later discussed and reported as part of the lecture.
Why Field Lectures Matter in a Sustainability Program
Sustainability can easily become abstract when it is discussed only through concepts, policies, and targets.
Field learning changes the scale.
A discussion about biodiversity becomes the task of identifying the birds living within a particular habitat. A conversation about conservation becomes an injured turtle undergoing rehabilitation. A discussion about responsible tourism becomes a question of how developed destinations manage water, vegetation, wildlife habitats, and human activity within the same landscape.
This is why field lectures form an important part of the Sustainable Development and Ecotourism Summer Course. Bali provides a particularly relevant setting because environmental conservation, tourism development, local communities, biodiversity, and economic activity frequently occupy the same physical spaces.
For students, learning across these environments provides something that a classroom alone cannot: the opportunity to observe the relationships between development and ecology, human activity and wildlife, and conservation and responsibility as they exist on the ground.
From birds above the lagoon to turtles entering the sea, the lesson is ultimately connected: sustainable development also requires understanding the habitats and species with which we share our environment.
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More reports
Bring Sustainability Into Your Field of Study
For students studying ecotourism, environmental science, natural sciences, biology, marine biology, hospitality and tourism, waste management, conservation, or other sustainability-related disciplines, Bali offers a living context in which many of these subjects intersect.
But sustainability is no longer a subject that belongs to one academic discipline alone. How we manage tourism, protect biodiversity, design businesses, use natural resources, produce food, manage waste, and develop communities increasingly requires an understanding of environmental responsibility.
Whether sustainability is already at the center of your studies or something you want to bring into your academic and professional direction, the Sustainable Development and Ecotourism Summer Course in Bali offers the opportunity to study these connections through university learning, field lectures, local expertise, and direct observation.
If your future work will interact with people, places, natural resources, or the environment, sustainability is knowledge worth adding to your education.
by upskill team
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