During May/June myself Jimmy Wanma and students and postgrads worked in the Arfak mountains to continue to document the flora and establish permanent forest monitoring plots.

This work aids the Tropical Important Plant Area designations led by Laura Jennings at Kew.

We collected plants around Kwau village from 1400 m to 2000 m. At the highest elevation montane forest gave way to diverse scrub vegetation with Nepenthes, Orchids, Rhodos, multiple Myrt genera and myrmecophytic Rubes. This vegetation type surrounds the Anggi lakes where it is chock full of endemic species – exciting to find similar over 20 km away.

We then carried out a permanent plot vegetation survey course for 15 undergraduate students. Here we taught how to measure and tag trees plus crucially how specimens are needed for good species identification.

On our last day we travelled back to Manokwari via Anggi collecting around Sururey and Kobre. Here the scrub veg was awash with flowering hardy shrubs, herbs, scramblers and small trees as we overlooked Anggi’s twin lakes.

Huge thanks go to all help given from Universitas Papua especially Engel, Andris, Manu and Aleks. I thank all relevant authorities for research permits and Jimmy Wanma, Haerul Arifin and Prof Charlie Heatubun for all their help and support.