forestry

Ideal for anyone interested in agroforestry or urban forestry, including agroforesters and environmental scientists, forestry courses will teach you how to grow, harvest and process timber on a woodlot, farm or native forest.

Our Certificate of Forestry and Timber Production will give you insights into timber types, growing conditions, wood preservation, improving the commercial output of tree production, and safe and efficient work practices.

You will also learn about erosion and salinity control, the health benefits of trees in urban environments, and forestry conservation and restoration, including wildlife conservation and agroforestry future developments.

Learning Outcomes

Outcomes achieved by undertaking forestry courses include:

• Learning about the importance of trees and tree value
• Examining how to decide on tools in agroforestry applications, chain saws, extending chain saw life and common sense chain saw safety
• Understanding duty of care in the workplace, protective equipment and personal protection
• Attaining knowledge of face masks, machinery, equipment and workplace safety
• Gaining insights into timber and forest products and key terms
• Learning about the different types of wood and their uses including hardwood and softwood
• Exploring composites and hardboard (high density fibreboard)
• Gaining an understanding of chipboard (particle board)
• Studying MDF (medium density fibreboard), laminates and veneers
• Examining harvesting and tree felling and stump removal
• Understanding how to use winches, cutting with an axe or saw and removing a stump
• Attaining knowledge of protecting trees, national tree registers and keeping the work site safe
• Gaining insights into risk assessment, duty of care and employer duties
• Learning about manufacturer duties, costing jobs and the cost of employing labour
• Exploring milling and processing and turning trees into timber
• Gaining an understanding of saws, the effect of shrinkage and wood preservation in cut timber
• Studying plantation and forestry management
• Examining silviculture and shelterbelts
• Understanding pruning and thinning including the benefits and pruning to reduce fire hazards
• Learning about conservation and restoration forestry
• Attaining knowledge of forestry for wildlife conservation
• Gaining insights into species selection
• Learning about forestry for wildlife conservation and creating wildlife corridors
• Exploring forestry for erosion and salinity control
• Gaining an understanding of design options for conservation and restoration forestry
• Studying tree layout, wide-spaced, clump and cluster and woodlots
• Examining agroforestry and its benefits
• Understanding carbon sinks and credits
• Attaining knowledge of agroforestry in farming
• Gaining insights into tree layout and selection, economic viability and tree selection
• Learning about agroforestry maintenance and future developments
• Exploring urban forestry, selecting tree species, assessing the site and choosing the trees
• Gaining an understanding of where to plant and the environmental and health benefits of trees in urban environments
• Studying the heat island effect, air quality and climate change resilience
• Examining psychological and physical health, ecosystems and biodiversity and the production benefits of trees in urban environments

And more!

New Ways to Manage Forests

If you are interested in forestry courses, it’s worth knowing about the innovative technologies that are helping the industry to manage Australia’s forests more sustainably and produce more from wood.

These technologies include:

• drones
• lasers
• scanners
• infra-red sensors
• 3D sensing and imaging
• advances in tree-breeding

DNA also has its place in forest management. By using DNA fingerprinting of wood, the legality of wood products and be verified. Individual logs and wood products can be traced back to the forest of origin.

This technology is helping Australia combat illegal logging and associated trade. It benefits the environment and businesses that are doing the right thing in Australia and around the world.

New Materials

Technological advances are also unlocking an array of new and exciting materials that can be derived from trees, including:

• engineered wood products
• pelletised wood
• chemicals from wood
• nano-cellulose

 

Forestry also plays an important role in mitigating climate change. Australia’s forests store nearly 22 billion tonnes of carbon, in addition to carbon being stored in wood products.

By developing biofuels derived from wood, the forestry industry is getting closer to achieving an overall carbon-neutral cycle. In a carbon-constrained global economy, our forests and wood products are the ultimate renewable resource.

The Use of Drones in Agriculture

With the global increase in the demand for “clean” food and other agricultural products, Australian farmers are finding that drones are returning critically-needed information on the health of their enterprises. And they are quickly proving their worth in an otherwise time- and labour-intensive industry.

The high-tech cameras most drones have today are capable of providing “real time” video and photos of livestock and crops much more quickly than what was usually available from physical field trips. This gives the farmer data about specific areas, including which crops are being subjected to weeds or pests and which areas need additional irrigation. Images can also alert farmers to crop health issues including which fields may be suffering from nutritional deficiencies.

Several Australian drone companies are providing drones which can be outfitted with equipment which will spray pesticides or herbicides only in those areas which need them. This saves the expense of generalised spraying over the entire field with a crop duster.

A drone can be outfitted with just about any type of sensor that a grower may need, from various types of cameras toLIDAR sensors. This can provide the growers with data ranging from simple tree counts in an orchard to topographical maps which can be used to improve irrigation and planting regimens.

Large agricultural venues in particular find that the use of drones provides the critical data which otherwise would be very expensive and time-consuming to obtain.

Drones and Water Conservation

Water conservation is also an extremely important aspect of Australian agriculture.  Drones can provide quicker assessments for farmers for better risk management projects.

For example, in Tasmania, drones are being used to monitor land that is being newly irrigated for crops in some areas where the land was only useful for grazing sheep. The precision agriculture that drones can augment means that water can be diverted to areas which are in need instead of drenching large areas and wasting water unnecessarily. Using drones also allows the creation of several different maps for this project, including terrain, drainage and soil variability maps to help optimise irrigation efforts.

It also means that, if desired, farmers can also control the irrigators on their farms on their Smartphones through a Wi-Fi network. Being able to use such precision agriculture at a moment’s notice from almost anywhere is not only a convenience, it is a necessity for today’s water conservation in Australia.

Case Study: Rowan Reid

Rowan Reid is a farmer, forest scientist and a Senior Lecturer who presented forestry courses at the University of Melbourne for 20 years. These days, he continues his academic teaching and research as a Senior Fellow of the university, and is a man on a mission — to change the way we think about timber and tree growing.

“When I hear discussions of forestry in this country, it is always one of two positions.  People want to lock native forests up or they think they should be logged”, he says.  However, Rowan suggests a third way for producing this incredibly important resource, with Australian farmers at the forefront.

On his 42 hectare family farm in Victoria’s spectacular Otway ranges, he has established an experimental forestry plantation — a research plot of tree species planted and maintained for multiple outcomes. Here, Rowan grows trees to produce high-value timber and also increase the environmental amenity of his farm.

“About 70 per cent of the Australian landscape is managed by farmers, and it is some of the most degraded land.  Water quality, salinity, soil damage — these are all farming problems and trees are very often part of the solution”, he says.

When he purchased his own property in the late 80’s, it was completed degraded.  Native vegetation had been cleared for cropping and dairy farming, with gully erosion devastating the property’s creek.  He immediately set about planting trees to stabilise soil and offer shelter.  But as a forest scientist, he also planted species for timber — more than 50 species from Australia and across the world.

Now after three decades, the transformation of the property is astounding. Sugar gliders are in residence and natural under-storey species are starting to reappear.

Local Blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon) and Messmates (Eucalyptus obliqua x regnans) are being grown alongside Silky Oaks (Grevillea robusta) and Red Cedar (Toona ciliata) which come from warmer parts of the east coast.

A famous American tree, the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) has also been a surprise success.  As Rowan explains, “It was slow to start but is now one of the fastest growing trees, even here where our rainfall is only 700mm a year and dropping.  As I watched them grow, I realised they were putting that initial energy into a lignotuber”.

The trees are also pruned carefully each winter, with branches cleared to around eight metres in height, to maximise the lengths of straight timber harvestable from each tree. Spacing between the trees is considered and managed to ensure access to light for each tree.

Rowan selectively harvests trees, using a chainsaw and his tractor. The timber is then dried in a solar kiln to ensure stability. His trees are used by builders and furniture makers and he also makes his own furniture.

 

Develop a comprehensive understanding of all elements of forestry from commercial production to conservation with forestry courses such as our Certificate of Forestry and Timber Production.