These institutions exist: Guyana, T/dad, Surinam, Puerto Rico & Cuba but are the ... Perhaps reformulate forestry schools' curriculum and cater for formal training ...
WORKING GROUP- FORESTRY TRAINING OPPORUTNITIES AND CAPACITY BUILDING Participants: Toby Bloom, Aloysius Charles, Ken Rodney, Albert Gallion, Ryan Wijnerman, Anthony Simon, Dillon Palmer, Osa Samuel, Algernon Grant, Anthony Jeremiah, Claus Eckelmann, MacDonald Greenaway, Eric Auguste, Christian Torres, William Trim Institutions (USAID - Ms Bloom, FAO (Mr. Eckelmann), Iwokrama (Ken Rodney) + 2 South American Countries (Suriname & Guyana), + 7 Caribbean countries – Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, St Lucia, St Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago
BACKGROUND & CONTEXT Participants: • Wanted to be more engaged and add flavour to the serious discussion • Interested in the balance of forest management and development; and know about each other’s situation • To gain more information on research projects (past and on-going) • Noted the downward trend in funding from governments for forestry • There is a knowledge & experience/technology explosion but no refresher courses to deal with the gaps in current developments • Iwokrama informed us that it provides training in tour guiding, forest inventories and forest rangers, (but can these meet the formal curriculum requirements?) • Many officers would be retiring soon and a vacuum would exist • Countries are at different levels of forest management • What are the realistic impacts of Climate change? • Desire to improve management efficiency and deal with gaps and transition • Organizations lack capacity e.g. research capability • These institutions exist: Guyana, T/dad, Surinam, Puerto Rico & Cuba but are the courses adequate and appropriate? • Experienced officers are at a disadvantage at times and junior officers vice versa • Students take loans but find it to find appropriate employment and promotion • Late correspondence about training availability • Governments’ de-emphasizing and fragmentation of Forestry • Still need to benefit from outsiders researches in our countries
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SUGGESTIONS • Perhaps reformulate forestry schools’ curriculum and cater for formal training and short courses (hands-on training) (FAO has tried to help revise curriculum in forestry schools). Claus sees 2 areas. On the job training with smaller, shorter inputs on specific subjects. The other is the shift of generations. The majority of senior officers were trained through aid projects (USAID, CIDA, DFID, CFTC, and others), but these opportunities no longer exist, so the next generation needs to be trained on natural resources. There are opportunities, but they all need to be structured to give young people the opportunity to get a formal forestry degree. Some type of scholarship program may be required. • Improve information sharing (use the CFM website) • When training comes up for forestry, climate change and other areas separately, we need to link these and remove the gaps • Forestry data collection and management re-GIS/GPS should reside in Forestry organizations (but the appropriate software needed is costly) • FAO and USAID can emphasize advocacy on behalf of forestry (network with University of the West Indies (UWI), University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), University of Guyana (UG) & Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) • We need to be aware of the different forestry management models available • Add an Event Calendar on the CFM website so all countries are aware of International and Regional training opportunities • Reduce wastage associated with logging and other resources PRIORITIES Hereunder are short courses as ranked: 1. Forest inventory practices - tree spotter/identifier training, dendrology, many species have several common names, need to standardize such; forestry tools training, GIS, GPS (13 votes) 2. Forest Utilization: Sawmill/general conversion technology; timber technology for tropical species; reduced impact logging (RIL); Non-wood forest products (NWFP)/Non-timber forest products NTFP) (8 votes) 3. Entomology/Pathology (7 votes) 4. Watershed Management (7 votes) 5. Nursery Management (5 votes) 6. Wildlife Conservation (4 votes) 7. Parks and Recreation (3 votes) 8. Community forestry (2 votes) 9. Forestry specific statistics and math-focused training and research for which there is a phobia (2 votes) 10. Agroforestry (1 vote) All these courses can be included in the formal training curriculum.
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