Message

from the Dean

In January, myfamily had the opportunity to visit our son Jason at his Peace Corps assignment in the village of Missira, Guinea. We came home with vivid images of life in West Africa, manyof which highlight the connections and impact that UC Berkeleycontinues to have in the developing world.

I discovered one such connection in the tinyhut of a Peace Corps volunteer, where I found a dog-eared copyof Agroecology, Professor Miguel Altieriís seminal work on achieving sustainable agriculture through respect for indigenous knowledge, protection of the environment, and promotion of social equity. Later, while staying in Dakar, Senegal, I came across an international symposium on African locust problems, and several posters that referred to the biocontrol work pioneeredin our Division of Insect Biology. This issueís cover story(page 8) explores the promise and perils of genetic engineeringóa technology that manyscientists regard as yet another approach to solving agricultural challenges in the developing world.

UC Berkeleyand Jason's alma mater, the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, each send far more Peace Corps volunteers to West Africa than anyother U.S. universities. The young volunteersí work teaching agricultural techniques is simple, yet astounding. In Jasonís region, agriculture is practiced without tractors or even animal power, and crops are subject to drought, insect invasions, and disease. As Jason puts it, ìThe job is easy, but the living is hard.î(This issue of Breakthroughs looks at another group of young people whoíve found a wayto engage in global problemsó see ì30 Students, One Worldîon page 16.)

Toward the end of myfamilyís African travels, we headed south and witnessed an astounding abundance of wildlife: lions and leopards, giraffes and zebras, elephants, foxes, and much, much more. But in West Africa we had witnessed something verydifferent. We sawfirsthand the decimation of West African animal life, which is the subject of an important recent studybyJustin Brashares, professor of ecosystem science. On page 20, read about the links that Brashares and his collaborators have found between over-fishing, the need of local populations to find alternative protein sources, and a disastrous decline of land-based West African wildlife.

This issue of Breakthroughs covers a lot of ground, and you maynotice some changes in our approach to the magazine. I hope youíll let me knowwhat you think of these changes, or simplyshare your own ideas and experiences, bywriting a letter to the editor. Enjoy the issue.

Dean Paul Ludden