Are you someone who loves being in the great outdoors? Do you have a passion for safeguarding our forests? Are you interested in working as part of a team and using specialized equipment to collect and analyze data? If so, a career as a forest technician might be perfect for you.

Role of Forest Technicians

Forest technicians play a vital role in forest management, protection, silviculture, harvesting, and conservation. Working under the supervision of foresters or forest technologists, they have a range of responsibilities, including:

  • Silviculture: This involves tasks like preparing sites, planting trees, tending to stands, and managing nurseries.
  • Timber management: Forest technicians may work as compass persons, regeneration surveyors, timber cruisers, or mapping technicians to ensure proper management of timber resources.
  • Forest protection: They might engage in activities such as insect and disease control, aerial observations, firefighting, or serving as fire lookout personnel.
  • Forest harvesting: Forest technicians might operate equipment, supervise logging operations, assess log quality, or lay out cutting blocks and roads.

Duties and Responsibilities

The specific duties can vary depending on the position, but forest technicians generally:

  • Survey forest areas and access roads.
  • Assist land managers in day-to-day field activities.
  • Conduct forest inventories to determine timber volume.
  • Create detailed drawings of harvest blocks, haul roads, and skid trails.
  • Mark trees for harvesting.
  • Inspect logs for defects, measure them, and estimate their marketable content.
  • Keep records of log quantity and condition.
... (Continues with more content)
Open