Indonesia Assessment 1995 contains two main sections: one overviewing current Indonesian economic and political conditions, and one examining economic and social developments in Eastern Indonesia. This is the vast region of 25 million people, lying between Java, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia. The book provides not only an up-do-date overview of Indonesia in 1995, but also one of the first comprehensive surveys of Eastern Indonesia, a rapidly growing but little known region of Southeast Asia. It will serve as an invaluable reference for policy makers, officials, scholars, business people and others interested in Indonesian development.

Indonesia's population, the fourth largest in the world, is expected to pass the 200 million mark in 1997. It has sustained high rates of economic growth over the past two decades. This has undoubtedly been related to its success in moderating earlier high rates of population growth, and to its significant accomplishments in human resource development. This volume is therefore timely. It presents a comprehensive evaluation of the current situation and assesses future prospects.

First published in 2004. This text examines the politics of Islam and the state of Indonesia over recent decades, during which time there has been a notable resurgence of Islamic political movements. It argues that after the state had consistently worked to restrict and exclude political Islam from power, in the late 1980s and 1990s there was a change whereby Suharto courted the support, and began to incorporate, Muslim interests within the political system.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding between Indonesia and Australia, traditional Indonesian fishermen are permitted access to fish in a designated area inside the 200 nautical mile Australian Fishing Zone (AFZ). However, crew and vessels are regularly apprehended for illegal fishing activity outside the permitted areas and, after prosecution in Australian courts, their boats and equipment are destroyed and the fishermen repatriated to Indonesia. This is an ethnographic study of one group of Indonesian maritime people who operate in the AFZ. It concerns Bajo people who originate from villages in the Tukang Besi Islands, Southeast Sulawesi. It explores the social, cultural, economic and historic conditions which underpin Bajo sailing and fishing voyages in the AFZ. It also examines issues concerning Australian maritime expansion and Australian government policies, treatment and understanding of Bajo fishing. The study considers the concept of "traditional" fishing regulating access to the MOU area based on use of unchanging technology, and consequences arising from adherence to such a view of "traditional"; the effect of Australian maritime expansion on Bajo fishing activity; the effectiveness of policy in providing for fishing rights and stopping illegal activity, and why Bajo continue to fish in the AFZ despite a range of ongoing restrictions on their activity.

Indonesia was founded on the ideal of the "e;Sovereignty of the People"e;, which suggests the pre-eminence of people's rights to access, use and control land to support their livelihoods. Yet, many questions remain unresolved. How can the state ensure access to land for agriculture and housing while also supporting land acquisition for investment in industry and infrastructure? What is to be done about indigenous rights? Do registration and titling provide solutions? Is the land reform agenda "e;legislated but never implemented"e; still relevant? How should the land questions affecting Indonesia's disappearing forests be resolved? The contributors to this volume assess progress on these issues through case studies from across the archipelago: from large-scale land acquisitions in Papua, to asset ownership in the villages of Sulawesi and Java, to tenure conflicts associated with the oil palm and mining booms in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra. What are the prospects for the "e;people's sovereignty"e; in regard to land?

Featuring hundreds of original, color photographs, this fascinating study of New Guinea chronicles the rituals and daily life of this remote and culturally rich region. Between the Tides offers a compelling mix of New Guinean storytelling, history, natural history, politics, and culture. David Pickell brings warmth and intelligence to his subject, and Kal Muller's photographs are surprising and evocative. Together, author and photographer show how an isolated, nomadic past meets a worldly, urban future, history confronts superstition, and a false and imposed sense of shame yields to a new, and still fragile, pride. Their journey took them from the dusty New Guinea frontier town of Timika to tiny Lakahia island, along two hundred miles of twisting mangrove creeks and the relentlessly uncooperative Arafura sea. What they found was a culture facing the delicate, sometimes humorous, occasionally painful, and always interesting process of change.