the final five months of the war. Then, Dr. Sam Ratulangi, a Manadonese, and Andi Pangiran, son of the Sultan of Bone, were sent to Jakarta to assist in the preparations for the birth of the infant republic. Ratulangi became the first governor of Sulawesi but was imprisoned after the Australian allied forces handed over the administration to the Dutch in January 1946. By the end of that year a guerrilla operation against the Dutch was well under way and the Dutch responded with their bloodiest campaign anywhere in Indonesia. On 17th August 1950, the Dutch accepted the independence of Indonesia. At this time Sulawesi was a single province. In July 1950, an intermittent rebellion with Islamic and regional goals erupted in and around Luwu and its forces became allied with the Darul Islam movement of West Java. By 1958, when this movement was at its peak, only the cities in South Sulawesi were under government control, and towns such as Soroako, now the centre of an international tin-mining operation, suffered severe privations (Robinson 1983; Kirk 1986). Order was restored in the early 1960s. In the regional rebellions of 1958-61, Minahasa (together with West and North Sumatra) declared their independence from the rest of the Republic, but few lives were lost before national unity was restored.
Present-day People
Despite the relatively small size and population of Sulawesi, the number and make-up of the ethnic groups is extremely complex.41 Early linguists used to ascribe a large number of language groups to Sulawesi. For example, one analysis recognized just one language group in each of Taiwan, the Philippines, Sumatra and Borneo, whereas for Sulawesi nine were recognized. More recent work has lessened the distinctiveness of Sulawesi languages but, even so, two of the nine language families found in Western Malayo-Polynesia are confined to Sulawesi. Linguists classify languages in a stricter fashion than do lay people, and the fifty ways of saying 'no' in Central Sulawesi alone do not necessarily represent different languages (Davis 1976). Rather this has arisen through small kingdoms or states being relatively isolated for long periods, and the development of dialects. The Sulawesi people themselves use region, religion and style of farming as the major criteria for determining ethnic groups. For example, someone from Central Sulawesi may refer to Christian Mamasa speakers of South Sulawesi as 'Toraja', but call Islamic Mamasa speakers 'Bugis' or 'Mandar' (Davis 1976). Similarly, the term 'Bugis' can mean seafaring Makassarese and Mandarese as well as the coastal Bugis (fig. 1.39; table 1.16). About 80% of the population of Sulawesi is Islamic and 20% Christian but there is considerable variations between regions (fig. 1.40).
Figure 1.39. The distribution of the major ethnic groups. Numbers refer to table 1.16.
From Davis 1976
The population is distributed unevenly across Sulawesi, with the area around Ujung Pandang having more than 300 people/km2, much of the rest of the southwest peninsula, Minahasa and Sangihe-Talaud having 100-299 people/km2 and Toli-Toli, Mamuju, the eastern arm and the east of Southeast Sulawesi having less than 30 people/km2 (fig. 1.41).
Figure 1.40. Percentage of population following Islam by county.
Based on Anon. 1981a
1 - Formerly called 'Bare'e'
2 - The group now commonly called 'Toraja'
From Davis 1976
Figure 1.41. Population density of Sulawesi by county.
After Anon. 1981a
PRESENT STATE OF NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS
Man began converting natural forest to other forms of vegetation many-hundreds of years ago but this process has accelerated greatly since the early 1970s when commercial logging, transmigration and estate crop projects began to receive enormous government support. The Sulawesi mainland now comprises an irregular patchwork of natural forest within and between areas of cultivation (fig. 1.42). The forest cover per inhabitant in Sulawesi is more than in Sumatra, Java and Bali, or the Lesser Sunda Islands (table 1.17), but this is at least partly due to the high proportion of land in Sulawesi on slopes which are unsuitable for agricultural development projects (table 1.18). For example, 83% of Sulawesi comprises slopes of 15% or above, compared with only about half of Sumatra, Kalimantan or Irian Jaya. Small islands have lost most of their natural vegetation: for example, Sangihe and other small northern islands were largely deforested by 1920 although Karakelang still has some forest cover (Heringa 1921). Likewise the forests of the small southern islands had all been converted to agricultural uses by 1915 with the exception of small areas of Tanahjampea and Kalaotoa (van Schouwenburg 1915, 1916a, b, c).
Figure 1.42. Extent of cultivated land (black) in 1982.
Adapted from Whitmore 1984b
From Anon. 1982b
Calculating land areas under different forms of land use is best conducted by the interpretation of satellite images. This was done for Sulawesi (Hadisumarno 1978), but the images used were made in 1972 and the usefulness of the information is now somewhat limited to historical comparisons. More recent analyses of land use over relatively small areas have been made by a number of government departments. An excellent series of maps showing land system and suitability, land use and land status was completed in 1987 for the primary use of the Transmigration Department, but these have had great value for others concerned with land use planning and resource management. Meanwhile, different methodologies, definitions and criteria used by different agencies tend to produce somewhat different figures for the land use of Sulawesi and elsewhere (table 1.19). This makes comparisons between tables confusing but does not necessarily affect the comparability of data within tables. Thus it can be seen that Sulawesi had less forest cover than either Sumatra or Kalimantan, and also relatively less land covered with estate crops (p. 487). The percentage of the land under wet rice fields is comparable to the percentage in Sumatra. See the Introduction for more recent data.
A comparison of land area, forest area, rice production and timber exports between the four Sulawesi provinces is instructive (table 1.20). In 1985 North and South Sulawesi were similar, as were Central and Southeast Sulawesi, in their ratio of land to population (about 1 ha/person and 4 ha/person respectively), but the difference in land capability and intensity of use is reflected in the greater rice production in South and North Sulawesi compared with the other two provinces. Southeast Sulawesi generally comprises poor agricultural soils and consequently rice yields are low. Timber ceased being exported out of the natural forests of Southeast Sulawesi in 1979 and out of North Sulawesi in 1981, and it is clear that Central Sulawesi was by far the most important timber producing province. Timber revenues in fact supplied more than 95% of the provincial income in Central Sulawesi. Logging continues in all provinces, of course, to supply local needs.
From Suwardjo et al. 1985
Obtaining definitive data concerning the area of land covered by different categories of forest is as difficult as obtaining accurate data on land use and leads to discrepancies between the figures produced by different departments (tables 1.21 and 1.22). It is well known that some Forestry land no longer has trees growing
