Howard Nelson

Howard Nelson, Ph.D is a Trinidadian ecologist and wildlife biologist . He is currently the Conservation Manager at the Asa Wright Nature Centre located in the Arima Valley in Trinidad's Northern Range.

Nelson did his Bachelors and Masters degrees at the University of the West Indies and his Doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison under the guidance of Stanley Temple. For his doctoral work Nelson completed a re-classification of the vegetation communities of Trinidad and Tobago, a massive undertaking which updates J.S. Beard's 1946 classification.

While working as Environmental Biologist in the Ministry of the Environment, Nelson played an important role in the drafting of laws to establish a National Parks and Wildlife Authority which, if implemented, would have radicallly altered the responsiblity for environmental management in Trinidad and Tobago. However, these changes have been blocked by political disagreements within the government.