JUST listen to the rustling of countless leaves of cemara udang trees stretching along the beach of Samas, and also the swishing wind brushing past the dunes on the coast of Bantul regency, Yogyakarta. All this tells us about the disappearance of a barren, hot sand beach and a small sand storm once battering the coastal land.

Ten years ago, Samas was a beach with an expanse of sand dunes. As the sun was rising high, several men began to dig the s