Some members of our group have been participating in virtual conferences held over June and July. The International Peat Congress was held in June and was supposed to take place in Tallinn, Estonia. Despite not being able to travel, it was still a fun time on their virtual platform and catching up with talks on the latest peat research. Our peat team, Estya, Stuart, Yuti and I, presented three posters and a talk. The posters are available under our 'Research' page in English and Bahasa Indonesia.

Muhammad Lubis and I presented at the American Institute for Indonesian Studies-Michigan State University (AIFIS-MSU) Conference on Indonesian Studies, also held in June. It was great to hear talks related to lots of different topics and themes in the conference, and to participate and present our work at the Climate, Vulnerability and Development roundtable led by Micah Fisher, Lisa Kelley and James T. Erbaugh.

Congratulations to Anushka Rege on receiving the Navjot Sodhi award from the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC)!

Navjot Sodhi was my former FYP and Masters advisor and was very supportive of women in conservation science. In 2010, Priya Davidar, Madhu Rao and Navjot wrote a piece on empowering women in conservation. They emphasized the importance of building capacity for women in the conservation sciences. Thank you Anushka, for embarking on this PhD!

Check out Anushka's talk on the role of subsidies on cashew plantation expansion in northern Western Ghats here: