Late last May, Hans and I travelled to Indonesia to connect with Bob Effendi and meet with a few people about the Sundaland Archaeological Project. The meeting went very well and it was left that he would lobby the Australian government to collaborate with the Indonesian government on this.
Just recently Hans was able to meet with his MP, Peter Hendy, at his electoral office in Bega. He was very interested in the project and the next step is for the Indonesia government to extend a formal invitation to the Australian government to collaborate on the project. Since there has been a change in government in Indonesia, Hans will have to meet with the new Minister of Culture, which Bob will set up for us. Indonesia is already covering the first stage of the project by making maps of the paleo channels from the information that they already have at their disposal. The invitation to collaborate will be on the second stage of the project, which will be the actual surveying of these paleo channels and this will be extending to the Australian Foreign minister, Julia Bishop.