The Yayasan Palung 2022 Annual Meeting on Pulau Juante -

By Petrus Kanisius, Communications Officer

From January 17th to 19th Yayasan Palung/GPOCP held our 2022 Annual Meeting on Pulau (Island) Juante in Sukadana, Kayong Utara Regency. Each year, the conservation and research teams come together for this two-day event.

*The entire Yayasan Palung “family” poses together on a dock at the 2022 Annual Meeting.*

It takes an hour to travel by motorboat from the port of Sukadana to get to Pulau Juante. Once there, all the staff stayed at an inn with a beautiful view. You can see the expanse of forest visible in the distance. Everyone took lots of pictures!

*The view from the boat as staff approach the meeting venue.*

In the afternoon of January 17th, we officially began the annual meeting. First, the research team gave a presentation about the achievements related to the research program throughout 2021. Next, the Sustainable Livelihoods team gave a presentation, followed by presentations from the Customary Forest team, Wildlife Crime and Investigations team, and the Environmental Education and Conservation Awareness team. These presentations about the many achievements from 2021 lasted until that evening.

The next day, all the Yayasan Palung teams gave presentations on their planned activities to be carried out in 2022. Following each presentation, the teams gave each other input on their planned activities and objectives. As usual, after the annual meeting was over, we took many pictures with both the conservation and research teams.

*Each program team presented to the others about the accomplishments from 2021 and the goals for 2022.*

We also had the opportunity to say hello to Dr. Cheryl Knott (GPOCP/Yayasan Palung Executive Director) and her family via Zoom. We all discussed how the Knott/Laman family was doing in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA.

Overall, there have been many incredible achievements from all of our programs, even despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. All the programs’ activities have still run well. We all hope that in 2022 Yayasan Palung will achieve even more successes, and reach all of our targets and beyond.

We all had a great experience at this year’s annual meeting, especially thanks to the beautiful scenery all around us. Each year it is so fun to spend time together with the big Yayasan Palung family. Everyone at YP works with a family-like spirit, and that has been a big strength of Yayasan Palung to date. We share a strong feeling of togetherness and shared purpose which makes for a wonderful work environment.