Prodita Sabarini, Denpasar – Bali's fishermen and farmers are more susceptible to the effects of climate change than other groups on the island, an environmentalist says.

The executive director of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi Bali), Ni Nyoman Sri Widiyanthi, said that based on a series of interviews with communities living in coastal, rural and forest areas in Bali, the organization found that fishermen and farmers were the most severely affected by global climate change.

"Those groups are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because their lives depend upon the cycles of nature," Widiyanthi said.

Walhi gathered information from 10 villages in eight regencies in Bali and found that unpredictability in the rainy and dry seasons had resulted in crop and harvest failures.

Climate change, which has resulted in unusual tides and sea temperature, has also negatively affected the incomes of fishing communities.

Fishermen in Pemuteran, Buleleng regency, in northern Bali, have had trouble fishing due to the unpredictable weather. They say they can no longer predict when and where to catch fish because of the different climate patterns. They also have to go further out to sea for their catches, increasing operational costs.

"Climate change has caused a drop in fishermen's income due to low catches and high operational costs," Widiyanthi said.

Farmers in Petang village in Badung regency said volatile weather had damaged crops, led to a fall in production and sometimes total crop failures.

I Ketut Geden, a farmer in Bangli regency's Kedisan village, said the last few years had been especially difficult for him. Changing climate patterns, he said, had cost him numerous harvests.

Another farmer, I Nyoman Rima, said there has also been reduced rainfall in the past several years.

Widiyanthi said that while farmers and fishermen suffered the most from climate change, it was urban dwellers who accounted for the majority of carbon emissions. "They also don't have the economic capacity for conducting mitigation efforts on climate change impacts," she said.

Bali will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference early next month. More than 10,000 delegates will gather in Nusa Dua to start negotiations on a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

UN scientists have warned that the world's poorest, who are the least to blame for climate change, will be the hardest hit by the phenomenon.