Dynamics of cultural ecosystems in the Makassar mountainous region: effect of the watershed management project, south Sulawesi, Indonesia

In the mountainous "Gantarang' region inhabited by the Makassar people, the upper classes living at the foot of the local palace monopolised rainfed rice fields and sugar palm communities, while the commoners, who were shifting cultivators, produced maize on the slopes of the mountains around the upper classes' villages. From the 1970s, the commoners began to settle down and make colonies on the middle mountain slopes as a result of strong prohibition of shifting cultivation due to pine plantation projects by the government. In the late 1980s, when the watershed management project was inaugurated, slash-and-burn agriculture and firing for grazing had vanished. Since the implementation of the project, the upper classes have been earning considerable amounts of cash income as wage laborers for the various activities of the project, and the commoners have been diversifying their income sources, stimulated by construction and improvement of the road network. -from English summary