The annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation came to our part of the world this year: it was held in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia from 1 to 5 July. Lahiru, Catharina and Ryan attended. Lahiru presented his recently published work on estimating emissions from peatlands. Catharina presented her ongoing work about altitudinal shifts of frogs on Mount Kinabalu. Ryan presented our recently published work on fragmented species–area relationships. The conference was a great success with 800 attendees from around the world, ample networking opportunities and, in particular, fascinating keynote lectures.