This research examines changing common property regimens in the Kei island, a remote archipelago separating the Banda and Arafura Seas in South Seas Maluku, Indonesia. The study focuses on conflict over access to an control of fishing grounds and agricultural and forest lands. The roles of customary `adat law,` traditional island village leadership structures, and local resource management systems in protecting individual and communal rights, comprise the central focus of the research. How these systems protect rights to reefs, island, shorelines, bays estuaries and forests and how the institutions and communities are adapting to accelerating changes in the natural and sociopolitical environment are being assessed. The portion of the work supported by NSF is archival and policy research to trace the historical developments of present policies and conflicts. This portion of the work is being conduced in Jakarta and in the Netherlands.
