Teaching and Training in Silviculture, Silvics and Silvology 08:30 - 10:30 Tuesday, 1St October, 2019 Venue R06 - WING 3 Congress Theme F
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F1a: Teaching and training in silviculture, silvics and silvology 08:30 - 10:30 Tuesday, 1st October, 2019 Venue R06 - WING 3 Congress Theme F. Communicating, Educating, Networking & Publishing Presentation Types Oral Chair JP Prof Due to changing forest policies and organizational changes in the forestry sector, forestry educations are constantly challenged to revise and update the curriculum. As an associated part of this process, forestry terminologies are also developing and sometimes seemingly directionless. In classical forestry, silviculture was an indispensable core discipline, but now even this part of the profession is sometimes under pressure. The objective of this session is to initiate a discussion about teaching and training in silviculture, silvics, silvology, and, in broader context, the management of forests. The session will include some short presentations on educational aspects of silviculture on different continents and for different forest types, focusing on methodological approaches as well as actual curricula. Following these introductory presentations there will be an extended, informal panel discussion about teaching and training. 08:30 - 08:45 F1a Teaching and training in silviculture: contemporary challenges and future prospects Jens Peter Skovsgaard Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden Abstract There are three main challenges for the classical approach to teaching in silviculture: (a) the economic basis for running a course, (b) the increasing diversity of students, and (c) the staff reductions in operational forestry. The economic basis is a major problem because silviculture courses generally are allocated similar budgets as other, purely classroom-based courses. For silviculture courses this is due mainly to transportation costs and severely challenges field tours as an integral part of the teaching. The increasing diversity of students is a pedagogic challenge. Many forestry curricula are based on optional subjects rather than following an essentially fixed progression of courses with a gradually increasing complexity. Moreover, students from other professions may wish to attend silviculture courses. Consequently, due to the lack of basic skills among some students, this generally lowers the entry-level requirements, demands more basic knowledge to be included in the course and prevents the course from reaching into advanced level silviculture. The staff reductions in operational forestry has a major impact on teaching options simply because the remaining potential hosts for field tours have less time available for apprentice training, supervision and teaching. This makes it increasingly difficult for forestry staff to plan and conduct field tours and to host students, and many decline to do so due to other competing and sometimes urgent work. Remote-distance teaching, virtual reality facilities and electronic media may help alleviate some of these problems in the future, but also pose challenges for the indispensable hands-on training in silviculture courses. 08:45 - 09:00 F1a The cross-border further training for close to nature silviculture (CTN) – best practice Milan Sarvaš, Peter Balogh National Forest Centre – Institute for Forestry Consultancy and Education, Zvolen, Slovakia Abstract Logging and wood-processing industry is the main source of income in many areas of the Carpathians, especially in Slovakia-Ukrainian border region. The forest exploitation was very intense in the 19th and early 20th century, when many native forest stands were clear-cut. To improve sustainable forest management in border region the education project focused on close to nature silviculture (CTN) was implemented. The overall objective of the project was to develop conditions for further learning of forestry practitioners of the border regions of Ukraine and Slovakia. In additional the next objective was to change the paradigm of forest management among forestry practitioners thus changing the system of forest management towards multifunctional and sustainable close to nature management. The project was divided into four phases. During first phase analysis and concept development the assessment of the current situation was done. In the second phase–capacity building the training program and the practical manual was developed. During the third phase training activities the training of trainers was done. The fourth phase was focused on consolidation and dissemination. The projects outcomes: 4 sample plot areas were established and serve regularly as demonstration and training sites; 14 trainers, 160 forest practitioners, 20 engineer specialists and managers of forest administrations and 10 members of forest owner associations were trained; the new training manual was published and disseminated; four joint practical training events organized with participation of 80 forestry practitioners were carried out; cross-border web-platform (www.foresterslearning.eu) for further training and knowledge exchange was developed. 09:00 - 09:15 F1a Bsc Forestry curriculum in University of Eldoret: Teaching silviculture and its challenges jane Kiragu University of Eldoret, Eldoret, Kenya Abstract Silviculture is and will remain a core subject in forestry training. It deals with all aspects of forestry and its sustainability. Traditional forestry is changing due to changes in forest land size, climate change, population size and status, forest type i.e. changing from Natural forestry to plantation forestry, rain forest to dryland forest, gazetted forest to farm forestry etc, which leads to changes in species type, uses and management methods. This calls for the change in the teaching of Silviculture. For the Foresters to be able to cope with these changes, the curriculum needs revision, which is also a challenge due to the cost involved. Challenges encountered in teaching Silviculture in the University is mainly lack of recent book publications leading to relying on very old text books, research in forestry aspects especially, Silviculture, takes too long to get results, making the research expensive, lack of information on the proper propagation methods, tending and management of most indigenous and exotic species for the tropics, lack of enough land where these research can be undertaken and insufficient funds. The teaching is mainly theory which makes in even more challenging. There is therefore need for government intervention so as to allocate more funds for research and training in order to improve the teaching of the subject. 09:15 - 09:30 F1a A network of university forests in Asia for long-term monitoring of forest ecosystems NAOTO KAMATA1, Toshiaki Owari2, Koichiro Kuraji3 1The University of Tokyo, Furano, Japan. 2The University of Tokyo, Kamogawa, Japan. 3The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Abstract Under changing environments, long-term monitoring and inventory data are important to detect temporal changes in environments and ecosystems. There have been so many attempts that aimed long-term research or monitoring. However, many of them have stopped due to the retirement of responsible researchers. On the other hand, university forests own various kinds of long-term data because they can obtain data as organizations, which is useful for forest research and education. The most typical one is meteorological data. Meteorological Agency in each country has been accumulated meteorological data for long. However, their observatory stations are normally located in urban areas so that data obtained by them need to be corrections before applying to forest research. On the other hand, university forests are normally located in remote areas so that climate data that have been obtained by university forests can be used for forest researches. The University of Tokyo Forests (UTF) consists of seven regional forests. The seven forests have accumulated basic long-term data that are available for researches and education: LTER plots, other stand plots, meteorological and hydrological data, bird community, plant and vertebrate inventory, and others. Since 2016, we teamed up with other university forests in Asian countries and started to share data and knowledge that have been accumulated in each university. We would also introduce activities of the network. 09:30 - 09:45 F1a FOREST SCIENCE FIELD EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI: A CASE STUDY ANALYSING LEARNING DIARIES Mika Rekola University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Abstract A Helsinki University field course “Forest and peatland ecology”, organised in June 2017, was studied using qualitative text analysis of students’ learning diaries as a main source of data. Students’ self-regulative knowledge was explored and found rather limited which is in line with some earlier literature. Teaching methods during the course were evaluated very positively by students. One of the main results was that the more activating teaching methods were perceived more positively. Learning diaries included a few negative evaluations and these can be seen as a valuable source of feedback. It is concluded that the field course is an extremely relevant method in order to achieve professional knowledge in forest sciences. The recommendations for future teaching planning are that more emphasis should be put on communicating learning aims, modern learning technology, and finally, critical self-regulation knowledge. 09:45 - 10:00 F1a Silviculture: Our way of beating the odds Biing Guan National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Abstract Silviculture is considered to be a core