Hector Castaneda
University of Florida, Interdisciplinary Ecology
Home country: El Salvador

I am native of El Salvador, where I grew up and obtained my basic education. Though I did not realize it at the moment, growing up in the middle of a civil war turned out to be a unique experience. Even though I was fortunate to not experience the full horror of the war, I can say I learned the value of life and an appreciation for peace later on in life. After graduating from high school, l went on to pursue my undergraduate degree in forestry at the Instituto Tecnologico in Costa Rica. Upon finishing my forestry degree, I worked for several years in my home country. My first job was at a socio-economic oriented NGO which works in rural poverty surveys among other topics. Next I went on to work at La Laguna Botanical Gardens as chief of the scientific-technical section. In this job I had the chance to learn about the management of live plant collections, dry herbarium collections, but above all I had the opportunity to meet and learn from scientists in the conservation field both from El Salvador as well as from abroad. Both of these experiences were very gratifying and awakened in me the interest for pursuing further academic studies in the field of conservation. Three years later, I obtained a Fulbright fellowship to come and study my master’s degree in Ecology at the University of Florida (UF). For my thesis I studied the cultural importance of forest ecosystems in providing food for indigenous people in Costa Rica. Among other note worthy experiences I have had was working in a global biocutural diversity project at UF I which I was introduced to geographic Information Systems (GIS). Here I learned how to relate cultural, social, and geographic data in order to explain large-scale phenomena. Later on I also had a great working experience with the Wildlife Conservation Society as a voluntary consultant for a few months in the Mayan forest in Guatemala. Here I worked in creating a digital map for a national park in the border with Mexico and Belize. It was a great opportunity to put into practice my GIS skills which I had been cultivating over the past few years during my master’s course work. These two experiences encouraged me to continue my PhD studies in the field of land use studies. Currently I am continuing my PhD studies at the University of Florida. My focus is on the study of the social, climatic, economic, political and geographic factors that promote the regeneration of natural forests in El Salvador. My hypothesis is that factors such as economic growth, massive migration to urban centers and the US, and armed conflict during the 1980’s have caused many agricultural lands to be abandoned allowing secondary forests to regenerate. My work is to find out where these areas are, which areas are more prone to this phenomenon, and what is the potential for conservation and ecosystem services these new forests have for the country.