| Professor Helládio do Amaral Mello was born in Piracicaba, State of São Paulo, Brazil, in 18 August 1917. He graduated in Agronomy in 1943 by the ESALQ, the Agricultural College of the University of São Paulo. His career was strongly influenced by other agronomist, Edmundo Navarro de Andrade, who introduced commercial plantations of Eucalyptus in Brazil, aimed at supplying wood for the railway system (firewood, poles and cross ties). Another influence in his formation came from his grandfather, Vicente do Amaral Mello, a farmer in the neighborhood of Rio das Pedras, who dedicated as much effort to his coffee plantations as to the wellbeing of his farm workers and to a permanent preoccupation with the conservation of the natural resources.
From 1944 to 1951 Helládio worked for the Railway Forest Service of the State of Goiás, in Araguari, with the task of establishing an eucalypt plantation in a recent acquired land area for supplying wood for the railway.
He joined ESALQ in 1954 as an assistant professor at the Department of Horticulture, with the condition of establishing the area of silviculture, which was not well developed at that time. While teaching Horticulture laboratory classes, he acquired good experience in forest nursery and seedling planting.
Soon after his initiation as university professor, he joined an academic group who was interested in nature and forest resources conservation. In 1962 the Horticulture Department was split in Horticulture and Silviculture, giving him the opportunity to be named as Full Professor of Silviculture.
During the decade of 1960, he was invited by the Brazilian Minister of Agriculture to join a special working group responsible for the reformulation of the Brazilian Forest Code, which was approved in 1965.
In the middle of the 60s, he was awarded with a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for a study leave at the Forestry School of the North Carolina State University, where he met Prof. Bruce Zobel, a plant improvement specialist. He visited several forest companies together with Dr. Zobel and had the opportunity to learn about the functioning of a program of integration between the University and forest companies carried out by North Carolina State University. He came back to Brazil with the firm idea of establishing a similar cooperative forest research program in Brazil, based at the University of São Paulo (www.usp.br).
With that in mind, a group of Brazilian forest companies directors was formed under his leadership, which then devised and created the Institute of Forest Research and Studies – IPEF (www.ipef.br), of which he was named Scientific Director and hold this office up to 1979, when he retired. At that time, Prof. Helládio made the following statement about the foundation of IPEF: Visionary men, with top responsibility in their industrial organizations, ascribed themselves the decision to create this Institute which, through the collaboration of forest scientists and technicians, and the financial support of forest companies, will be able to develop advanced forest research.
He advanced successfully in his university career and was named Chief of the Forest Science Department of ESALQ (http://www.esalq.usp.br/departamentos/lcf/) in 1970, where he stayed up to his retiring. In 1971 he was given permit for the creation of an undergraduate course of Forestry at ESALQ. This was the third Forestry course in the country, after the ones created before at the Federal Universities of Paraná and Viçosa. In 1976 he was able to initiate a graduate program in Forestry, at the Master´s level, which developed to the actual Doctorate Program in Forestry at ESALQ.
Helládio was responsible for the establishment of two Forest Experimental Stations, the Anhembi F.E.S., in 1974, with an area of approximately 600 hectares, and the Itatinga F.E.S., in 1988, with an area of about 2,200 hectares, which were extremely helpful for the consolidation of the undergraduate and graduate programs.
He is the author of over 50 research papers and over 200 articles and teaching aid materials. He also advised several graduate students and was an example for many others.
Helládio was always striving for the strengthening of the importance of the Forest Science Department and the IPEF in the Brazilian forestry sector, constantly searching for financial resources for the improvement of the Department´s infra-structure, research capability and personnel improvement.
As a recognition of his important dedication for the development of the Brazilian forestry sector, he was awarded with many distinctions, such as the Navarro de Andrade Medal. The IPEF Forestry Library, which he devised and established, was given his name by the IPEF board of directors. This IPEF library is recognized as one of the most complete forestry library in Latin America. He also devised and published the IPEF Journal, presently named Scientia Forestalis, which is a well respected scientific journal.
In 1981 a graduating award named “Helládio do Amaral Mello Award”, offered by IPEF, was approved at ESALQ, which is given annually to the graduating student with the highest average final grade in the entire undergraduate forestry program.
Posted 10 August 2007
Updated 23 August 2007
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