Indigenous people’s environmental conservation system: case study of Kajang society, Indonesia

Abstract

This paper analyses the village of forest in Tana Toa, the locality of South Sulawesi that is headed by the Ammatowa. The Ammatoa is a term which describes a society who live in the area of Tana Toa, is divided into Ilalang embaya, who have maintained their exclusiveness and sharp borders, and the Ipantarang embaya, who have mixed with other members of the surrounding society. Among the Ilalang embaya there is a set of adat regulations based on pasang that demands obedience to is detailed. Prescriptions in such contexts as shape, size, and orientation of housing that must be built. The force of adat allows possibilities of empowering local institutions for managing forest resources in the context of the future scenario of regional autonomy. This paper considers the question of the extent to which the institution of Ammatoa leadership and is associates adat constitute an institution that has fully been used for the village forest in this locality of South Sulawesi. It mainly considers the question of how these institutions can be updated and contextualized througe a process of reflective mutual understanding to cope with the context of regional autonomy. The paper concludes by investigating the reality of changes in the Ammatoa system as it responds not only to the expansion of the forest resource management requirements but also the imperatives to transform into an open community.