On Saturday 10 November, Dr Fahimeh Jami (Postdoctoral Fellow), Kira Lynn (M.Sc. student) and Nam Pham (Ph.D. student), returned to South Africa after spending almost two months in Sumatra. The ‘trio” form part of a larger team of FABI staff and students leading the RGE-FABI Tree Protection Programme focussed on key tree health projects of interest to the RGE Group. Most of the time was spent working in labs and plantations in the Kerinci area with some time also spent in northern Sumatera in the Lake Toba area. The research undertaken in Indonesia was supervised by Dr Alvaro Duran, a former FABI student and now leading the forest protection research programme for the APRIL Group.  This was the first official research visit of the student  team that included collection samples representing various tree pest problems.  Field-based studies were conducted in the outstanding laboratory facilities in Kerinci. The more fundamental aspects of the research  work will continue in FABI. Professor Mike Wingfield and Dr Irene Barnes joined the team for a shorter period of time thus to provide advice to students and colleagues, based variously in Indonesia and South Africa.