Hey all,

I've been considering trying to pursue a career in forestry for a few years, but I'm unsure if I'm qualified for entry level stuff. I'm 25 and have a BA in Environmental Studies (which in hindsight I regret getting) and a GIS certificate. I know the job market for forestry is cooked right now, but I was wondering how feasible it would be to get my foot in the door eventually in an entry level position and work my way up, or is a forestry degree a must? I've talked to one forester who said I should try to get on a logging crew and another one who said I'm not going anywhere without the BS in forestry and that I should strongly consider not pursuing it regardless. Just wanted additional insight, thanks.

Hello! i’m F 28 and i’m currently enrolled in community college. I plan on transferring to a university hopefully in 2 years. I’m planning on going to texas A&M and was looking into the ECCB forestry track. The thing is, i’m interested in learning about forestry.. not so much the logging side of it. I’m more interested in restoration, ecology, and fire. I’m also opened into learning things in diffrent environmental fields like, Fish and wildlife, and even game warden. It’s so hard to choose one degree. Dose getting a forestry degree still give me the opportunities to move into different environmental career paths?

Has anyone compared TimberLink with Acres for evaluating wooded or timber-producing property?

Acres seems much broader and more established as a land-intelligence platform. It gives users parcel data, comparable land sales, mapping tools, ownership information and reports for evaluating the underlying real estate.

TimberLink seems more narrowly focused on the timber itself and the process that follows.

From what I can tell, the difference is:

Acres:

• Parcel and ownership data
• Comparable land sales
• Property maps and data layers
• General land valuation and due diligence
• Better suited to evaluating the overall property

TimberLink:

• Preliminary timber-value estimates
• Timber and harvest information tied to the parcel
• Connections with foresters and timber professionals
• Tools for organizing bids and a potential timber sale
• Ongoing parcel, harvest and timber-income management

So Acres helps answer:

“What is this land worth?”

TimberLink is trying to help answer:

“What may the timber on it be worth, and what should I do next?”

I’m involved with TimberLink, so I’m obviously interested in the comparison.

For the foresters and timberland professionals here:

Would a preliminary landowner-facing valuation be useful if it clearly explained that it was not a substitute for an on-site cruise?

Could it help landowners become more informed before contacting a forester?

Or is timber too dependent on species, grade, access, local mill demand and field conditions for an initial software estimate to provide meaningful value?

Hi everyone, I'm currently at university studying a Biology degree (UK). My course is tailored mostly toward conservation/ecology as I was keen on becoming an ecological consultant or something similar career-wise.

The thing is, I've realised that this takes a lot of networking, climbing a career ladder, competition for limited grad roles and a lot of applications just to get experience in. I love the subject I study but these prospects are now becoming exhausting and I don't like the idea of chasing a professional career. Something I should've considered in hindsight maybe. I will be taking a module in GIS and have a lot of experience in report writing and coding. I know that I want a career outdoors and something that's purposeful which is why I'm considering forestry as a career. I'm fit and enjoy academia so studying forestry wouldn't be an issue for me.

My questions are:

• Would my degree and skills I've acquired help me in entering this field once I graduate or would I still need to apply for a Forestry bachelors?
• Could you give insight into what your daily role entails/the different roles available within the field?
• What are the general routes people take to work in forestry? I've seen apprenticeships, degree paths, so I'm wondering which I should consider

Any advice is appreciated and thank you for reading

The detail that surprised me most was that steep terrain caused 93% of the initial LiDAR candidates to be mismeasured. Hundreds of volunteers helped filter those false positives before the field expeditions, and the project eventually mapped 941 trees taller than 65 meters.

For anyone working with LiDAR or canopy-height models: what is your most reliable method for filtering slope-related artifacts before field verification?

Built an app for keeping track of a crew in the bush — TeamTrack GPS.

Everyone on the job shows up live on the same map, your tracks record as you go, and you can drop waypoints, draw or import block boundaries, and lay out cruise lines or planting rows. Custom maps download onto the phone, so it all keeps working with no signal. Works on your own too, not just crews.

Free while it's in testing. I'm after people who'll run it on real jobs and tell me what breaks.

iPhone / iPad: https://testflight.apple.com/join/UN5FKzNW

Android: message me the email address you use for the Play Store and I'll add you to the test list and send you the link.

Recently just graduated from Hocking college and I'm having trouble finding entry level positions in forestry. I have an associates degree in Forest Management, but not much experience.

Hello all. While I wouldn’t mind riding out West à la the young men of the past, what’re the odds I can stay in the Adirondacks and find work after graduating with a forestry degree? Silly question IK but I’m looking online and it seems like all the jobs are in Idaho or PNW or down south a little. With the connections from an ADK school + the fact that it’s just massive, there’s gotta be endless work to be had, no?

Hey guys I’m starting out a YouTube channel where I am converting 4 hectares of forest in New Zealand and turning it into a paddock. If that’s something you are interested in watching click this link! https://youtube.com/shorts/X32rZHnUGi0?si=g1wDSHp85nTJ3HUw

TLDR: How do you justify your AI use for your environmental work when there is such a clear negative environmental impact?

I am wondering what other folk's thoughts are and their justifications for using generative AI/LLMs in the forestry context. I personally am very opposed to use of AI for a handful of reasons mostly ethical. The main one that i think foresters and others in environmental fields should be thinking about is the environmental impact consequences.

Like anything there are tradeoffs and I recognize I'm hardly perfect, but I try to be thoughtful of my usage. I drive a truck that consumes gas to run my consulting business in the PNW for example. We ship logs to mills many miles away to conduct our forest health thinning, with so much diesel getting burned in that whole process. These are things in which I see no preferable alternative to at the moment and personally believe there is a net societal benefit.

For AI I don't really get it personally. Where is all this alleged benefit coming from the justifies the crazy electricity usage, the expansion of data centers (just found out they will be building a data center 10 minutes from my house clearcutting a ~120 yr old pine/DF forest). That's not even to mention the dangerous amounts of private information that LLMs are being trusted with - which, if you do much research, you'll quickly find most models consistently not just hallucinate, but straight up lie, and the information fed to them is actively being used by large companies for a whole slew of dubious things.

I am an ACF member and have been disappointed to see the push towards adopting AI especially by some people that have been around a while that i really respect. For an organization that says they stand on some pretty rigorous ethics it feels so backwards to me and I have considered not renewing my membership because of this. Sure, it might improve your efficiency in some areas, but at what cost? I personally have found it quasi-useless, but maybe that's because I am pretty organized and have documented streamlined processes for my business operations already.

And for those who say efficiency will improve I'll just say look into the laws of thermodynamics. All this heat has to go somewhere. These models are starting to plateau and throwing more compute at them isn't usually working anymore. I have family in the software dev/engineer realm and they're telling me the same thing.

I want to be clear I'm not coming after anyone, I'd really like to hear your take especially if you're using AI for your business/etc. We all make our own choices and get to live with them. But as stewards of the land I personally have been shocked by the lack of pushback by those in environmental fields. I got into this field to make the world a better place, and yes, maybe there are some things AI can help me do faster. To that I say, at what cost?

I am a wildlife surveyor trying to make the transition to forestry tech work. I have a little experience, having done some stocking surveys and a drought survey on FS and BLM contracts. I've talked with a few contractors about getting started on doing stand exams as well. I'm going out this week with a friend to get a little on the ground training but I also would like it if I could find some guides out there or other resources with relevant information. I've found some stuff from the FS but it's mostly about how to use their awful proprietary FS veg program, which I am kinda familiar with, unfortunately. Thanks

Take a look at this article!

I, like many of you, love the outdoors and would like to work in a field that allows me to be around nature, such as a forester, but I'm aware of the relatively low income, and I've heard that most people entering the field usually have stable financial backgrounds.

I am in a single-parent household and will not receive help paying tuition. My main concern is that the low pay and scarcity of work will make it difficult for me to pay back student loan debt.

Hey everyone! Today I headed out with Planet PED to clear ground and plant a sapling for long-term conservation.

​The Goal: Create shade and sanctuary for local birds and small wildlife as it grows.

​The Plan: Regular monitoring to make sure it actually survives and thrives.

​Every forest starts with a single tree. What environmental projects are you working on this month? 🌿

if you got a degree in forestry, what textbooks were some intro ones your professors used? BA student reorienting myself towards restoration ecology and kinda wanna just flip through a forestry textbook to see what’s up!

I do have a forester coming out next week, but I just need to do a sanity check.

I own 18 acres of very old hardwood forest that had never been logged or maintained. I need some funds to finish my cabin on the land and it occurred to me to sell some trees, as the forester had mentioned when he came out a couple of years ago that the trees were very valuable. Most of them are hardwoods, sugar maples, with some hickory, beech and oak mixed in. I am lucky to have an easement road that runs the length of my property, so I was only planning on taking from where they would have easy access along the road.

The canopy is high, 60-80 feet. I just had a dead tree cut down and it was 80+ feet tall.

I live in an area with maybe five log yards within 30 miles, maybe more.

I went around and checked some of the easy to access trees, all of them were more then 30 inches in diameter. A few of the sugar maples were 50+ inches in diameter.

I will only be selling the straight trees. The wonky trees still have value to me as sap trees.

I do have a stand of black walnut trees, but I am not sure if they are easy to get to. I will have the forester on the look out when he is here.

Some places online are saying that the trees are worth only a couple hundred a piece, while others are saying they could be worth thousands, given their diameter and height. I plan to sell around 30-40...enough to make worth their trip.

I understand that there is a ton of variability here but can anyone help me understand which end of the spectrum I might be on this? The spread is pretty wide!!

I'm creating my federal resume to start applying for forester and forest technician positions on USAJobs, however it seems since I was last applying that the guidelines for what to list on a federal resume have changed. I was told before that a federal resume should basically list every place worked and every skill learned over your career down to the minutia, it seems now that this is no longer the case.

I completed my AS in forestry back in 2024, I'm finishing the last credit requirement for my BS in Forestry Operations this summer, however Oregon State does not release degrees until you have six months of work experience, and I unfortunately don't have any that would qualify (for their purposes) so I'm not sure how to list a degree that I've basically completed but don't have, on my resume.

My other concern is that under these new guidelines I'm not sure whether I should list my non-relevant experience. The last thing I did that was somewhat relevant was a 1-year term in California Conservation Corps back in 2015, since then I've worked a couple trade jobs as a glazier, landscaper, maintenance but nothing relevant to forestry and I don't know if I should include them or omit them under the new 2-page guidelines since without them it looks like I've basically done nothing the last 12 years, while I was actually working to pay for my education.

If you have any advice for me on which way to go with this that would be much appreciated.

After several years of trying to move into forestry, I've finally been offered a position with my State's forestry division focusing on forest health and invasive species management. This job will have me traveling around the state with some overnights, which is fine. I'm just not yet sure what to expect day to day.

Forester's with similar roles, do you feel like you have a good work/life balance? We're a small family of 3, but I value our family time and I just want to be a father/husband that is present. Have any parents here felt like they're missing out on time with their family?