Archival photographs showing land use history in the Luquillo WEBB study area

Clearing of forest, Luquillo mountains, 1930's.

Oxen teams were used throughout the central mountains of Puerto Rico to clear forest in small plots (typically several hectares of less). Economically valuable hardwoods were removed first. After forest was removed, subsistence (root vegetables, plantains) and cash (tobacco, sugar cane) crops were alternated during the year 'round growing season. (photograph from International Institute of Tropical Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico).

Woman cutting fuelwood, 1945.

Forest clearing occurs with varying intensities and for several purposes. Cutting and gathering of fuelwood was required for food preparation in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries in the Luquillo mountains and elsewhere in the central mountains of Puerto Rico. (photograph from International Institute of Tropical Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico).

Rural family, 1940's, Toro Negro area of Luquillo mountains, Puerto Rico.

Subsistence farming families living on small plots of steeply sloping land in the mountains of Puerto Rico were forced to over-utilize their land. The eventual exhaustion of soil resources was a contributing factor leading to the abandonment of farmland and migration to San Juan and cities of the United States. (photograph taken by F.H. Wadsworth, from International Institute of Tropical Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico)

Landscape, central mountains of Puerto Rico.

Intensive agricultural and grazing land use resulted in mosaic of pasture, small subsistence plots and patches of secondary forest on steep hillslopes. (photograph from International Institute of Tropical Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico).

Landscape with tobacco barn, central mountains of Puerto Rico.

By the middle of the 20th century 94 percent of the 9,000 km2 island of Puerto Rico had been deforested¹. The island began to industrialize in the 1950's and agricultural land use declined. By the late 1980's, about 35 percent of the island was forested. (photograph from International Institute of Tropical Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico).