"I became a scientist thanks to what I see as two accidents," Carlos Ramirez-Sosa told us. "When I was eight years old, I joined the Boy Scouts. And then, when I was in seventh grade, my father bought me a microscope set." Carlos lived with his family in El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America. "Of the two, I think being a Boy Scout was the major influence, though the microscope got me interested in science as a whole.

"I was a scout for ten years. Along with my troop, I traveled all over the country, learning about the natural world and how to survive in it. Among the things we had to learn about were edible plants and medicinal plants in the wild." To achieve the highest rank, Carlos had to spend seven days in the forest, alone except for one other high-ranking scout, and survive without any food from town. "We learned how to make bread from plants in the forest and what plants to use for a stomachache and other such problems."

Carlos left the scouts, and El Salvador, just after finishing high school in 1980 when he moved with his family to the United States. He has maintained his connection, however, and serves as an environmental counselor whenever his work and studies bring him back to his home country. He has also been named the Honorary Associate Curator of the National Herbarium there.

Carlos was living in New York City when it was time to go to college. "I knew I wanted to become a scientist, but I wasn't sure what kind. Because environmental conditions are so bad in El Salvador, I thought I wanted to work on some kind of environmental issue, so my interest was pointed in that direction." El Salvador is the most densely populated country in Central America, Carlos told us. "It is also the most deforested. Only 5 percent of the country is forested and only about 2 percent is protected by the government," he said.

Carlos went to Lehman College in New York City, where he met a plant ecologist named Dwight Kincaid. "He really helped me focus on what I wanted to do. I worked as a volunteer in his lab for three years, about 30 hours a week, and I was able to do real research and present it at scientific meetings." Carlos went on for his master's degree at Michigan State University, where he studied global warming and urban trees. While at Michigan, he helped develop an educational program called Tree Amigos. "It was for fifth graders. Students in Michigan learned about tropical forests and students in Costa Rica learned about temperate forests," Carlos explained.

Carlos told us about an inventory he once did of a section of forest in El Salvador. "It took me a whole year, and I inventoried three hectares. Most people do only one hectare. My first site was a 25-minute walk from the nearest town. It was very difficult during the rainy season because there were a lot of mosquitoes, and it got very dark in the forest, and it was hard to dry specimens. Also, my plot was on a slope and the ground was very slippery. One day I fell down about 40 times. My second site was in a more distant area, a three-hour walk, so I had to camp out there. Sometimes I'd ask myself if it was worth it, but the answer was always 'Yes.' I had this drive and I learned to enjoy it, because I care about science and I want to learn and to provide something to the people in El Salvador."

Now he is a doctoral candidate in the City University of New York/the New York Botanical Garden Plant Sciences Ph.D. Program. His specialties are tropical forests and ethnobotany. "I will probably be the first Salvadoran to get a Ph.D. in ecology," Carlos told us. "A lot is expected of me." He has already begun fulfilling those expectations. He served on an advisory committee that studied and made recommendations for the management of a national park in El Salvador.

"The questions I am interested in apply to conservation, politics, and cultural issues. I believe it is important to take a multidisciplinary approach. All of these issues are interconnected, and if we do not look at the larger picture, we lose sight of that connection and everything suffers as a result," Carlos said.