Indonesia Update Conference 2015

Land and development in Indonesia: searching for the people's sovereignty

18-19 September 2015

VENUE: Coombs Lecture Theatre, H C Coombs Building #9, corner Fellows Road and Garran Road,
The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601

Rural development, food security, land reform and infrastructure are high on the agenda of President Joko Widodo’s (Jokowi’s) administration. Many experts regard formalisation of land tenure as key to economic development and more efficient use of resources. In Indonesia, land registration, titling and formalisation remain problems. Policy debates continue about how to recognise customary rights, pursue land reform, and support infrastructure development and capital investment, including in plantations and mining. Practices of nature conservation and carbon sequestration also require resolving property-rights questions in Indonesia’s extensive forests.

The Indonesia Update 2015 will examine land law and its administration in decentralised Indonesia. From large-scale land acquisitions in Merauke, Papua, to asset ownership in the villages of Sulawesi and Java, to the tenure conflicts associated with the oil palm and mining booms in Kalimantan and Sumatra, papers will consider Indonesia’s many land challenges. Presenters will also examine the environmental implications of land management. In light of international debates over agrarian reform, tenure formalisation and ‘land grabbing’, this year’s conference will discuss the many possibilities for progress.

Speakers will include Adriaan Bedner, Nancy Peluso,Chip Fay, and Suraya Afiff.

The conference is free of charge

Conference convenors

John McCarthy
Crawford School of Public Policy
Email: John.McCarthy@anu.edu.au

Kathryn Robinson
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Email: Kathryn.Robinson@anu.edu.au

Conference administrator

Indonesia Project The Arndt-Corden Department of Economics
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Canberra ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA
P: 61 2 6125 3794
F: 61 2 6125 3700