It is not required, but many employers of forestry professionals will give much more weight to an applicant who received a degree from a Society of American Forester’s (SAF) accredited institution. I have looked at Forestry curriculums from non accredited colleges and many are very lacking in the coursework offered. This would be more significant for entry level positions.
When I was in college, my school required 145 credit hours to graduate, essentially a five year program. I think about 10 were earned during an 8 week summer field camp. The SAF has changed the requirements since then for accreditation and the credits have been reduced to a more normal 120 hours or so.
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I am not sure about the answer for this, except that it probably depends upon what sort of forestry that you want to go into.
I had a cousin who was a forestry major (he had a bachelor’s degree in forestry from UBC). At one point a daughter expressed interest in forestry so I looked into it. It appears that there are several different types of forestry major.
One was what my cousin was: An expert on the practical issues of managing a forestry/lumber business. He was the foreman of a small group of people who would go into the forest ahead of the lumberjacks and plan. They would look at the conditions of the trees, and what types of trees were in what places. He knew the economic value of various different types of wood based on the condition of the wood. He would look at possible spots for temporary roads. As one example if the roads needed to go in swampy areas they would do the work in the winter when the ground was frozen (this was in northern BC). Drier areas could be worked in the summer. I think that he knew something about tree diseases and the impact on the value of the wood, but I do not think that he would have been qualified to figure out how to treat the trees if this were needed. I doubt that his entire team had university degrees, and I am pretty sure that most of the people who followed after them with chainsaws did not.
Another forestry option is to learn how to become a forest ranger.
I am pretty sure that there are other options.
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you guys are angels. thank you, i will act on this advice now
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