What was demolished
On 13 September 2026, Governor Wayan Koster went to Banjar Dinas Goris Kemiri in Pejarakan village, Gerokgak district, Buleleng regency, where an illegal villa was taken down on his orders. Antara Bali reported the operation.
The plot sits inside a forest of roughly 700 hectares managed by the village body LPHD Wana Makmur under the Social Forestry scheme. The forest received that status by ministerial decree on 5 June 2020 and supports 3,262 households.
The violations
The villa was not part of the forest's Social Forestry Management Plan (RKPS). The owner received three written warnings and did not respond to any of them.
Officials found no groundwater permit and no building approval, and no landscape study had been done before construction. They also suspect a nominee arrangement, where a foreign investor puts a project in the name of an Indonesian citizen.
What happens next
Koster cited the provincial regulation on controlling land conversion. "Don't play around with the rules in Bali," he said.
The provincial environment and forestry office has been told to replant the site and return it to forest use. In June 2026 the Bali legislature had already handed the deputy governor recommendations on violations in Pejarakan, including criminal prosecution of offenders and of officials who may have helped them.
Not an isolated case in the north
Buleleng has drawn official attention before. In April 2026 a Bali legislative committee recommended a temporary closure of a resort where five villas stand over mangroves in West Bali National Park.
Both cases involve land whose legal status rules out private villas. The north of the island, where land is cheaper, is under scrutiny too.