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A planned Saturday afternoon protest and celebration of the Memorial Stadium tree-in aims at recruiting returning UC Berkeley students to the cause of the six branch-sitters and their allies. 

The protest, underway since Dec. 2, challenges university plans to level the grove of California Coastal Live Oaks, a redwood and other trees along the stadium’s western wall to make room for a $125 million gym. 

A raid last Friday swept away the shelters, food and other supplies assembled by supporters of the arboreal activists, but it hasn’t dampened the spirits of organizers. 

UC Berkeley professor Ignacio Chapela is one of the campus activists who has joined the cause. 

Chapela said eliminating the grove and replacing it with a four-story complex would severe a vital pathway used by native wildlife. 

“Closing this corridor would reverberate across those wild landscapes from the Berkeley Hills all the way to Pinole and Chabot and beyond to the rest of the parks that make the East Bay the envy of the world,” said the professor, who fought and won a legal battle for tenure. 

Saturday’s events, which get underway at the grove starting at 1 p.m., will feature statements by Chapela and others, a performance by Berkeley’s own activist songwriter in residence County Joe McDonald and others, as well as acorn-bobbing and a chance to taste acorn meal pancakes.