Remembering Dr. Frank H Wadsworth

Dr. Wadsworth arrived in Puerto Rico by boat without knowing anything about the island, he simply knew that it was one of two options that the agency offered him when he married his supervisor's daughter.  He was already familiar with his other option in Alaska and decided on the adventure of the tropics.

Puerto Rico was the winner because for the next 80 years Dr. Wadsworth focused his enormous energy, talent and discipline on the development of tropical forestry, which did not exist at that time.

Thanks to Dr. Wadsworth and his collaboration with the government of Puerto Rico, a conservation movement began, with a focus on the wise use of the Island’s natural resources, particularly its land and forests.

Dr. Wadsworth was instrumental in developing public policy that gave way to the Environmental Quality Board, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Forest Act.

Dr. Wadsworth supports environmental education through his efforts with the Natural History Society of Puerto Rico, Boy Scouts of America, Puerto Rico Council, and Julio Enrique Monagas National Park in Bayamón.

During his tenure as an employee of the United States Forest Service, Dr. Wadsworth was a forester, Director of the Institute of Tropical Forestry (now the International Institute of Tropical Forestry), Supervisor of the Caribbean National Forest (now El Yunque National Forest), and after his retirement from the Forest Service, he continued his research as a volunteer at the Institute, always dedicated to conservation and tropical forestry. He traveled the world, but in Latin America they remember him because he established the practice of tropical forestry and was responsible for the development of foresters that he trained in Puerto Rico and of tropical forestry schools in several countries including Venezuela. He wrote books on the trees of Puerto Rico, Mona Island, and the forest production of tropical America.  He was protector of El Yunque ensuring that its lands were administratively designated as a place for research, water and wildlife conservation and the perennial protection of its historic forests.  He initiated research on the Puerto Rican parrot that led to the conservation efforts which prevented its extinction.

Over the years Dr. Wadsworth became a Puerto Rican and at the time of his retirement he remembered the beauties of Puerto Rico that he had the opportunity to know, appreciate and preserve. Thanks to his work today, all Puerto Ricans understand the importance of trees and their benefits, and advocate for the greening of the Island. The seeds that Dr. Wadsworth sowed during his long and productive career, have germinated in all of us.

Puerto Rico y el Servicio Forestal de los Estados Unidos de América perdieron a un gigante de la conservación con el fallecimiento de Frank H. Wadsworth.