USGS - Puerto Rico Historic Photographs USGS Water Resources of the Caribbean Archival photographs showing land use history in the Luquillo WEBB study area Clearing of forest, Luquillo mountains, 1930's. Economically valuable hardwoods were removed first. 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. 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. Intensive agricultural and grazing land use resulted in mosaic of pasture, small subsistence plots and patches of secondary forest on steep hillslopes.