I was born in Rhinebeck, NY in 1981 to Christopher and Jane Clark. Six years later, along with my big sister Alexis, we moved to Ithaca, NY. My family has always been the center of life. They are my best friends, my role models and my security. Growing up I watched my father, through his hard work and vision, create a world-class research program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology whose mission is the conservation of biodiversity through education, outreach and research. I watched my mother develop science curriculum for school children and create amazing environmental calendars to raise money for local, national and international causes. It is their amazing influence that has always grounded me. Alexis has recently entered a graduate program in conservation biology!!!

In 1999, at the ripe old age of 18, I entered the Biological and Environmental Engineering program at Cornell University. The rigors of Cornell engineering molded me into an analytical thinker and exposed me to the thoroughness of science. Cornell also opened doors to field research. The summer after my sophomore year I interned at The Scripps Institute of Oceanography. I designed a vacuum pump system that removed air from manufactured sand. The sand was placed in a tank with water and used to model the ocean seafloor.

During college I gave up soccer and started wrestling Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I was cutting weight and competing often in open tournaments. Jiu-jitsu is submission wrestling with a traditional gi. It includes joint locks and chokes. Unfortunately, knee injuries kept me from taking my training to where I once believed it could, and I had to give up on my lofty Pan American goals, content to work in other, less cartilage- tearing directions.

During the summer of 2002, I assisted a young scientist in the collection of data for his doctoral thesis. He was recording dwarf minke whale vocalizations in the shallow waters along Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The research setup was coordinated from Lizard Island Research Station, which provided amazing facilities for reef ecology research. Using an array of hydrophone buoys, whales were recorded, located and tracked.

From Lizard Island, I headed to Melbourne University for a semester down under. Melbourne is an amazing city, full of energy and small enough to get to know intimately. Unable to wrestle, I started practicing yoga and visiting an exiled monk who led weekly Buddhist meditations.

I returned to Ithaca in the fall of 2002, finished my senior year at Cornell University, and applied to the Peace Corps. And here I am, writing on the back of a cardboard box, drinking bitter maté in my little Paraguayan hut, and watching the sun rise through a misty November morning. This short but intense experience in Paraguay has opened my eyes to the reality of our world; the reality of poverty and the reality of the challenge that the world faces. That challenge is to find sustainable agricultural and economic solutions to raise the standard of living of all people to a dignified level while still retaining the highest biodiversity possible.

Only by understanding our evolutionary past can we truly understand how extraordinarily dependent we are on all other forms of life. The solution to our energy and food needs requires us to respect our place in natural ecosystems. The current approach to agriculture is that of brute force and represents a very myopic strategy. Unsustainable farming practices can be very lucrative in the short run, but destroy the resources upon which they ultimately depend. Natural systems already clean our water, fertilize our soil, and regulate climate. The more we disrupt these natural processes, the more we are forced to implement technological prosthetics. This cycle is inherently unstable, creating increasingly fragile systems with increasingly complex crutches. There is a point of no return, when a critical portion of an ecosystem's plants and animals are destroyed and everything crashes.

Paraguay is already seriously deforested. Where I work, in Guaira, slash and burn forest clearing to plant sugarcane has been the greatest contributor to deforestation. Although sugarcane represents a welcomed source of income, clear cutting for both large and small plantations foreshadows the end of what remains of the Interior Atlantic Forest in Guaira. In my community the drastic change in the local habitat is commonly noticed with concern, especially by the older generation. It is a source of major anxiety for those who remember how things once were and for me because I foresee complete deforestation in my community.