Blog

Name: Charlie Calafiore
School: University of Rhode Island
Major: Wildlife Management
Program: Tropical Rainforest Studies, Australia

When you live in the rainforest, you are wary of a lot of the living things that surround you. From leeches and spiders to snakes, there are many things that can make simple tasks more difficult. Despite this, I couldn’t help but be a little confused when the problem of the day was a tree.  This particular tree was found fallen across a Centre trail by a group of students on their morning run. By the time they returned with this news, it was only one hour before the whole group was supposed to leave. To make matters even more peculiar, this tree was preventing us from going to plant more trees.

Not knowing just how large the tree was, our Student Affairs Manager (SAM) Jenna, the three interns (Olivia, Megan, and Joe), three other students (Margie, Emily, and Alex) and I went to attempt to move it. Armed with a couple saws and some hedge clippers, we soon realized that we might be outmatched. Despite an extraordinary effort we could not move or cut through the thick tree.  Tree: 1. SFS: 0.

Back at the Centre, we waited to see if we could get someone with heavier machinery to remove the tree in time to be of some help at the tree planting, even though at this point we would most definitely be late. Luckily for us, the tree did eventually get cleared and we all climbed into the vehicles. At the tree planting site, our arrival was well received as a light rain made conditions less than ideal and the addition of our group sped up the process significantly. Hopefully the trees we planted that day will one day be tall enough to inconvenience people in the future.