Indonesia's geographic expanse and urgent need monitoring natural resourches make it a potentially large user of satellite remote sensing products. After a brief presentation of major institutions, universities, and organizations dealing with this technique, the paper reviews and analyses major constraints, i.e. cloud cover, atmosphere, landscape, and equipment. It is followed by some examples of SPOT-derived local operational achievements. These are related to cartographic aspects, land cover mapping, agricultural-suburban interface, forestly, soils and geology. Finally, economic aspects and perspectives are considered. As confirmed by other independent works, the SPOT-derived examples stress that this type of data, especially the 10m resolution data, seem to offer a viable alternative to more expensive aerial photographs, particularly when repetive coverage is required.