Forestry Education

The traditional forestry practice is under increasing pressure to transform, driven primarily by a shifting public perception of sustainability, and developments in science, communications,
and global markets. In this context, the existing forestry education model is poorly equipped to cope with changes sweeping through the forestry sector that are linked to digitisation and rapid development in the information technology sectors. In preparing professionals for forestry practice today, notable discrepancies between what potential employers want and what the forestry institutions provide are apparent. In response, when hiring graduates of professional forestry programmes, forestry employers have changed the skill set and competencies sought.
A similar scenario is also observed in South-East Asia, which despite its abundant forest resources and robust forest industries, is also experiencing dwindling interest among young people and falling enrollment rates in its forestry education institutes. Prevailing financial
constraints and political pressures on higher education make it difficult for educators to close the gap between forestry education and forest practice. Nevertheless, a concerted effort from all stakeholders in revising the existing forestry education model to incorporate new courses and skills that will better prepare future foresters, appears to be the way forward.

As a field of study, agroforestry is directly relevant to a wide variety of individuals and offers the opportunity to bring together the broad fields of forestry and agriculture to offer the scientific underpinnings for the development of a new, comprehensive and integrative land-use strategy. There are a number of constraints that must be considered as this new field develops further. One constraint is that science tends to operate as a reduction process where subjects are divided and then subdivided as more is learned about their nature and properties. However, agroforestry programs will only be successful at solving real-world problems if an integrative and comprehensive approach is adopted and maintained. Also, there can be no single education or training model that is universally applicable, because approaches to education and training in agroforestry must be country-specific depending on ecological, socioeconomic, and cultural needs. These were some of the issues addressed by the working groups at the Workshop. A summary of their recommendations highlights some key issues and possible approaches to meeting specific future needs in the areas of agroforestry education, training, and support.

Many of today’s arguments about forestry education proceed on the assumption that the past was glorious, the present is bleak, the future is doomed. In fact, foresters have disagreed about the proper balance between academic and practical training since the days of Bernhard Fernow, Gifford Pinchot, and Carl Schenck. The two main option for education–depth in technical forestry and breadth in natural resource management–reflect equally old, and fundamentally opposing, views of forestry and the profession’s place in society.