Our Vision

Our vision at Sarinbuana Eco Lodge is to create a space that will place value on the environment and inspire those who come here to do the same in their lives.

Family

Our Balinese Land Owners

Family Ceremony

About us

The Owners: Norm & Linda vant Hoff

Norm first came (from Australia) to Bali in the mid-eighties, and then, on his fourth visit in 1989, he leased land from a local family and built a two-story bungalow from coconut wood and bamboo. This was Norm’s hideaway in paradise. He took a couple of months off work every year to come to Bali, and in 1992, he married Linda, in a colorful Balinese ceremony in Sarinbuana.

Together they imagined a place where people could come to be inspired by Balinese culture, the lush farmlands and the beauty of the rainforest on Mt Batukaru. Over the next five years, they held Permaculture courses at the Lodge, inviting international students, for an intensive two weeks, to learn about integrated design for sustainable communities and sustainable food production.

They added more guesthouses, and in 2000, Norm, Linda and their two boys, Larz and Oska, moved permanently to Bali. Over the next few years they developed their beautiful home in paradise into an eco-lodge, where others could come to share their experience.

A bit about Norm

Norm van’t Hoff has gathered a wealth of knowledge from over 30 years of practical experience and academic studies. Starting work at eighteen, as a commercial fisherman in Northern Australia, although he relished the adventure, he recognized the damage he was doing to nature, and left fishing to work instead on charter boats, on the Great Barrier Reef. In 1987 he gained his Captain’s ticket, working up and down Australia’s East coast and in the Mediterranean, for the next ten years. While working in the Whitsunday Islands he became horrified by the damage tourism was doing to coral reefs, eventually declaring, to family and friends, that he was going to become, an environmentalist.

Norm, as Convener of the Whitsunday Greens, ran a six year campaign to save local reefs, culminating in the widespread implementation of new reef protection strategies and the formation of the O.U.C.H Volunteers. This successful campaign eventually resulted in the Government installing ‘No Anchor Zones’ in the Whitsunday’s, and public moorings throughout the Great Barrier Reef, in an effort to protect coral reefs from further anchor damage.

While still living in Northern Australia, he worked on large, tree-planting schemes and led the local Green Party. Afterv the family moved to Northern New South Wales, he farmed organically and sat, as the environmental representative, on his local Catchment Management Committee. During this time Norm also took university studies in environmental management, entomology, atmospheric science, plant science and plant production.

For two years after moving to Bali, Norm managed an environmental NGO in Kuta (Yayasan GUS), where he implemented rubbish management at several beaches, started a high school environmental awareness program – which has been taken to over 20,000 Balinese students, and advocated vigorously, on behalf of the Kuta community, for better environmental management.

Leaving the NGO for commercial consulting, Norm worked the next few years on private & commercial projects in Bali, implementing sustainable waste management systems, developing strategies for non-toxic pest control, greening hotel operations and designing environmentally friendly landscapes.

In mid 2005 he was invited to speak at a Greenpeace sponsored, ‘Green Conference’, in Banda Aceh, which was to come up with ways to rebuild coastal Aceh sustainably, after the devastation of the Boxing Day tsunami. In late 2005, he went to Aceh to work on reconstruction, where, seeing a serious gap in capacity, he focused all his energies on the critical, if neglected, sanitation sector.

His first major task was working for USAID, where Norm’s practical experience and Permaculture training saw him giving four workshop trainings to over 180, water and sanitation engineers – from the twenty three different Red Cross agencies working in Aceh, plus Oxfam, CARE, GTZ, Save the Children, UNICEF, the Government Reconstruction Agency and a host of other NGO’s engaged in what was, the biggest reconstruction project in recorded history.

Norm’s last major event, in 2007, while working for the German technical agency, GTZ, was a two-day seminar – with 300 attendees and simultaneous translation – sponsored by UNICEF, and supported by the major players in reconstruction, specifically to launch and ratify, his ‘Guidelines for Selection and Implementation of Sustainable Sanitation Systems in Reconstruction in Aceh’. His last project in Aceh was to design, socialize and implement a ‘showcase’ sanitation project, for 2,000 new houses, funded and implemented by the British and American Red Crosses.

Norm lived and worked in Aceh for two and a half years.

A few notes on Aceh

On Boxing Day 2004, over 150,000 people died, in Aceh alone.

The Acehnese had been at war with the central Government for twenty years, at the time of the tsunami, so there were no tourists and few cameras to capture what happened there. The few images we did see were taken in Banda Aceh, which was protected from the really big waves, by a mountainous peninsula. There are no images of the much bigger waves that struck the West coast.

The world never saw images of the giant waves that hit the West coast of Aceh, but the scars they left told a story of mass destruction, along hundreds of kilometers of the low-lying coastline. Half of the provincial capitol city (Banda Aceh), several, major regional towns and hundreds of small villages were totally wiped out. A 100km stretch of the West coast bore the brunt of the biggest waves, which, on average, were 15m high. Most of the communities Norm worked with had lost 60% to 80% of their people.

The unprecedented reconstruction effort – 150,000 new houses, hundreds of new schools, offices and public buildings, hundreds of kilometers of new roads and the rebuilding of all vital infrastructure – reportedly cost 6-7 billion dollars (80% from overseas) and took more than 3years. In December 2009, USAID is still working on a new road down the West coast.

Permaculture training and years of practical experience saw Norm teaching and assisting literally hundreds of ‘experts’ from around the world, while leading the way in a critical development sector, which is responsible for around 60% of the preventable sickness and disease that people in tropical, developing countries routinely suffer. It is a terrible indictment of the aid and development industry, that an unqualified, non-specialist, should find himself in that position.

Norm was shocked by the inefficiency and almost total lack of transparency or accountability in the big, international aid and development agencies. If you are interested in aid and development, you can find his, rather scathing, assessment of standards achieved in sanitation in Aceh at www.vetiver-indonesia.com.

After Aceh, Norm returned home to Bali, where he’s spent the last two and a half years catching up on lost time with his family.

Norm is a passionate teacher with a genuine gift for sharing the concepts, and the vital, underlying Principles of Social, Environmental and Economic Sustainability, via the practical methods he’s learned from Permaculture and hands-on experience.
Norm’s principal, academic qualification is a Diploma of Permaculture.

Currently, Norm is…

• Founding partner in a company, which produces and sells the remarkably useful, vetiver grass. The company also provides design, training and implementation services, for sustainable land management projects using vetiver, which he describes as one of the world’s few ‘miracle’ plants. See: www.vetiver-indonesia.com.
• Commercial Environmental Management Consulting, see: www.bicg.org.
• Dec ’09, design and implementation, a project to replant 4,000 native fruit trees, in damaged parts of the protected rainforest, on Mt Batukaru.
• Dec ’09, Permaculture design and environmental consulting for a new, 1.4h, Eco-Stay project, near the Eco-Lodge, on Mt Batukaru.

Norm is occasionally available for design and consulting on eco-projects and programs. He also gives occasional Permaculture trainings.

You can contact him directly at: normbali@yahoo. com

A bit about Linda

Linda vant Hoff is from New Zealand, she first came to Bali in 1984. Linda has studied and practiced organic farming including: Managing organic farms, soil ecology & organic farm conversion.

She followed permaculture principals for over 15 years and facilitated Permaculture courses at the lodge in Bali during the 90’s, Linda holds a Permaculture designers certificate.

Before leaving Australia she studied to be a Organic Farm Inspector for organic certification and also practiced Swedish/ Thai massage & Reiki and had her own Organic cafe in the Whitsundays , Australia.

Linda has sailed the coasts of NZ, and was the first mate on the beautiful 57 foot White Swan in the Great Barrier reef Australia for several years. She instigated and managed the first Organic/ Biodynamic Growers Markets in Australia in 1998 which still continues today in Bellingen NSW Australia.

Now in Bali, Linda has taught Environmental Studies for 5 years to International students and home schooled their 2 sons at the lodge for 6 years.

Linda has trained all the local staff at Sarinbuana Eco lodge in:

Management,  Healthy cooking, Maintenance, Computer skills, English,  House keeping  & Organic gardening.

Linda’s eye for natural asthetics is reflected throughout the lodge where she has designed the interior spaces including: furniture, lighting & bedding.

She works daily with the staff on menus, landscaping and new design projects.

She has worked extensively with the local community managing the Seacology project (see below) and raising environmental awareness.

She has trained locals to be trekking guides and massuses

Linda has developed the weekly English class at the lodge for local primary aged children which has been running now for 6 years.

She  has also  initiated and continues to support the biweekly Silat class (Indonesian Martial Art) for children aged 6 – 12 yrs and is currently working on reintroducing the Hornbill to the Batukaru Rainforest.

Linda has a love for Orangutans and has developed trekking tours in Sumatra to bring economic benefits to the local community and raise awareness on the plight of the Orangutan.

Currently she is consulting for the new Bali Eco Stay opening in December 2010`

After 10 years of living & working in Bali, Linda is now available to share her knowledge through consultancy in:

• Eco Interior design
• Greening your home – sourcing eco friendly products
• Greening your staff
• Greening your business

Please enquire through the contact us page

Recognition

Highest rating by the Natural Guide to Bali

Sarinbuana Eco Lodge has been awarded the 2-leaf rating by The Natural Guide to Bali for Environmental & Social awareness and practice.

Releasing captured Pangolin

Releasing native cat

Winner of the 2007- 2008 Wild Asia Responsible Tourism Award for best Eco Lodge in South East Asia

Receiving the award in Phuket, Thailand

Current – Nominated for the 2010 Virgin Responsible Tourism Awards

- Nominated  for the 2010 Wild Asia Award

Click here to read a review from the Green Travelers Guide