For over 60 years Dr. Herster Barres has been working in tropical silviculture.  He worked for the Institute of Tropical Forestry in Puerto Rico as a research forester from 1961 to 1964. He was then assigned to the Center for Higher Education and Agricultural Research (CATIE) in Turrialba, Costa Rica as a FAO Forestry officer. It was there he taught and undertook research in testing tree species for wood production on farms. He founded the Latin American Tree Seed Bank in CATIE and planted trees on farms in the Turrialba Valley.

In 1993, at the request of the EPA, he founded and developed the present program, Reforest The Tropics. Shortly after, Reforest The Tropics gained approval in 1995 by the U.S. and Costa Rican governments.

Dr. Barres is a graduate of Yale University and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.  He has a doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland and is considered an expert in his field.

If you see Dr. Barres and his lovely wife, Miranda, out and about in Mystic, be sure to say hello.