I’ve been hearing this a lot when I’m in schools, “I want to go into conservation biology”. I said the same thing when I was in high school. I knew I wanted to be involved in environmental management and conservation, and thought I could do that with an Environmental and Conservation Science (ENCS) degree. I sifted through the confusion that is choosing a career, and soon found out that’s not the education background you need to open doors in environmental management.
Did you know 64% of the public forest land in Alberta is allocated to forest companies? By my uneducated, guessing (and often wrong) eye, forest companies seem to hire 10 foresters for every one 1 ENCS grad. I’m going to assume most private landowners do their own environmental management for the most part (ie. My dad mowing the lawn in short shorts).
So that means 64% of the manageable land in Alberta is managed by people who take forestry in post secondary school. They are the ones that decide where to cut trees, where to plant trees, and how much of each to do. Foresters have the prominent role in creating the forest that future generations can enjoy.
So why am I writing about this? According to the Society for Conservation Biology there are currently 13 jobs in conservation biology in Canada (3 in Alberta). According to Canadian Forests, there are currently 62 jobs as a forester in Canada (10 in Alberta). This would be fine if the forestry grad classes were 5x the size of the ENCS grad classes. But they’re not! Right now there are 18 people graduating from the U of A in forestry and more than 5x that amount in ENCS. So vice versa of the amount of jobs currently in the province and country.
I’m not saying GO INTO FORESTRY, or DON’T GO INTO ENCS. I am saying, there are lots of doors open to you if you have a forestry education and there’s not that many people taking it in school. Forestry programs are well respected and have been around for a very long time. They also come with a well respected professional designation (Registered Professional Forester or Registered Professional Forest Technologist). What is the best part of those professional designations? The deadly awesome stamp that comes with the title.
Throughout my education at the U of A, I got the diagram below drilled in my head. There’s a bunch of government laws making sure that forests in our province are managed so that our children’s children can enjoy the land as much as we do today. But really it comes down to the diagram below and as a forester, it’s your job to make sure we land where those 3 circles connect. Talk about a rewarding (and challenging) career.
And I’ll close with the Boom De Yada song. I love the world, and this catchy little diddy.
|
