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| The show started in traditional fashion, with traditional dancers. |
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| Skit depicting the oppression of the working classes by corrupt and uncaring officials (standing in the back with crossed arms and disapproving looks). The mud added an impressive dash of realism to the oppressed actors (in foreground, writhing on the ground. |
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| Singers & drummers. |
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| Happy cooks providing late night snacks. |
Like forestry students probably everywhere in the world, the Hasanuddin University forestry students hold an annual event to welcome new students to the faculty. This is held at Hutan Pendidikan, usually around this time of year. Last year it happened in late February, just after I arrived to live here. This year, it was a month earlier, and sometimes it’s held in December. Regardless of the shifting date, from my 2 sample points, it may be a tradition to hold it in the middle of rainy season when the campground that a hundred or so new students call home for the weekend is knee-deep in mud. A good introduction to living rough, I guess. But lots of fun in any case. Students from 2nd, 3rd, & 4th years put on a variety show with songs, skits, parodies and fireworks, and despite the temporary intermission for rain, it all went very smoothly again this year. There are some very talented individuals in the faculty.
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| Ebony germinant. |
Although many of the forestry undergraduates and graduate students come to the forest to establish sample plots and gather data to complete their thesis requirement, most projects are of relatively short duration. My work partner Nasri plans a longer data collection period for his Masters thesis, spanning at least a year. I’ve been out with him a couple of times to help set up his plots and record data - it’s an interesting question. He’ll be tracking survival rates of newly germinated and one-year-old ebony seedlings. Part of the project is also looking at distribution of fruit and seeds, but this gets complicated because monkeys, birds and other fruit predators spread the seeds liberally. Without knowing what animal is eating the fruit and how far from the parent tree it’s taken, it’s difficult to make any predictions about seed dissemination. Left to its own devices, the heavy ebony fruit falls straight down, leading to the reasonable conclusion that it germinates in shade, a secondary succession species. Nasri’s project should be able to indicate the effects of competition on new germinants, and possibly determine the optimum level of canopy cover for seedling survival.
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| Nasri tagging seedlings - well over 300 in one plot. |
Everywhere I look in the forest there are opportunities for long-term research projects: revegetation following landslides, preferential fruit predation by bats, exclusion of grazing animals from pasture to look at natural succession, etc. etc. etc. Cristina, newly back from four months in Italy, will be hosting two more Italian graduate students for several months starting in March, who will be studying “her” monkeys, the moor macaques, followed by two American students in the summer. The possibilities are endless here.
But, of course, the rain can slow us down. The day we went out Nasri & I only finished one and a quarter plots before it started and we ran for cover, so it’ll be a couple more days until plot establishment is complete. That’s okay, it’s the most fun you can have in a forest, right?
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| Rebecca & Tina hiking in forest. |
Well, almost. The previous week we had two Aussies visit, Tina & Rebecca, & we were lucky enough to have several rain-free hours to go hiking & swimming. Our waterfalls are in full flow right now, & they're beautiful.
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| Rice in the rain. |
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| A good reason to always carry a camera - you never know when you'll see a pete-pete (local bus) that makes you laugh. |
