Charles M. Peters records

Dr. Charles (“Chuck”) Meredith Peters was a tropical ecologist whose work centered on plant demography, economic botany, and the ecology, yield, and management of tropical forest resources by local communities.

Born on June 5, 1952, in Shreveport, Louisiana, Peters earned his B.S. in Forestry from the University of Arkansas in 1977, where he became interested in the ecological side of forestry. He went on to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (now the Yale School of the Environment), earning an M.F.S. in 1979 and a Ph.D. in 1988.

Peters joined the Institute of Economic Botany (now the Center for Plants, People, and Culture) at the New York Botanical Garden as a Research Associate in 1984. His early work focused on the ecology, use, and management of native Amazonian fruit trees. Following this, he turned to projects examining community-based use and management of tropical forests in Mexico, Amazonia, West Kalimantan (Indonesia), the Greater Mekong Region (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), Southwest China and Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and Uganda. In addition to his research, Peters spent several years teaching courses on the ecology of tropical forestry at Columbia University’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (now the Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability) and at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Peters retired in November 2018 and now spends his time pursuing his love of topography and letterpress printing.