This past Saturday, I rose early from sleep and donned my very best work clothes and boots in preparation to join eight of my fellow graduate students and two rangers in a morning event that could best be described as “trashy.” The rangers that joined us were representatives sent from the East Bay Regional Parks District. Together, the eleven of us spent three long hours in the warm morning sunshine recovering trash from the Emervyille Crescent Shoreline, which is a part of the Eastshore State Park network. This special shoreline cleanup event was organized by the new Community Outdoor Cleanup and Outreach (COCO) project, funded and sponsored by the Graduate Assembly (GA) of UC Berkeley.

The new COCO project is the culmination of a year’s worth of effort on the part of concerned graduate student Dillon Niederhut, the GA delegate from Anthropology, and the GA Community Outreach Workgroup that he was pivotal in founding. This cleanup was COCO’s trial event, largely organized by fellow Workgroup member Christopher Klein, the GA delegate from Astronomy.

If I told you that I recently travelled to Brazil and saw a number of the world’s most unique plants and animals while trekking through a densely vegetated, humid environment, you’d probably assume I was referring to a hike through the Amazon rainforest, right? That’s because, for good reason, the Amazon attracts quite a bit of international attention — its struggles against deforestation and pollution make their way onto the pages of mainstream news outlets frequently. Meanwhile, we rarely, if ever, hear about the determined fight for the survival of Brazil’s other great forest: the Atlantic Forest on Brazil’s southeast coast. But the Atlantic Forest is exactly where I found myself over winter break, and while my excursion into a protected area of the forest accounted for just one day of the two-week long trip, its beauty and fragility left a lasting impression on me and my fellow travelers.

The main thing to know about the Atlantic Forest is that it is currently about 85% smaller than it was five centuries ago, yet it still houses nearly as much biodiversity as the much larger Amazon rainforest to the north. A large fraction, up to 40%, of its biodiversity cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. Extensive deforestation and fragmentation has made it necessary for NGO’s to step in and help maintain the vibrancy of the now fragile ecosystem. For example, my excursion was guided by members of a non-profit organization called Projeto Juçara, whose mission is to protect the Juçara palm tree. Juçara (juice-ARE-uh) palms are heavily poached for their edible palm hearts, and over time the trees have become one of the many endangered species residing in the Atlantic Forest. As my companions and I walked through the forest, we scattered Juçara seeds alongside the path in the hope that we could help restore the tree to healthy numbers in that area of the forest.

There’s a sea breeze blowing, only it’s not the sea – the wind is rolling over the fields of sugar cane in front of the field station.  A few hundred meters up, the road meets a single-lane highway and beside it is the electric fence. On the other side amble hopeful giants.  They’re elephants, eyeing the little fruit stand across the way and biding their time until some passer-by passes over the goods.  The evenings are cool, even chilly.  Now and then you hear the burst of what sounds like a firecracker – elephant ‘shots’ meant to drive fence-breakers away, but unsuccessful so far as each evening these days someone has been going through.  Word is that at least one of them is a one-tusked male trans-located into the park a short while ago.  So far we have not managed to catch the culprits in action, although our housekeeper spotted one strolling past the gate of our field station early one morning.  That describes a typical evening for me last summer.  I’ve been studying the Asian elephants of Uda Walawe National Park in Sri Lanka for the past six years.  Currently, I’m trying to raise money to find ways to help elephants and people live alongside one another.  How did I get here?  It’s a long way from Berkeley.