Forester
Forester
Career Overview
Foresters manage and protect forests and other wooded lands for conservation, recreation, and responsible resource use. They develop forest-management plans, monitor tree health and growth, oversee harvesting and reforestation, protect wildlife habitats, and help manage risks such as wildfire, disease, and insects. They also work with landowners, governments, and forestry organizations to balance environmental protection with the responsible use of forest resources.
Education
A bachelor's degree in forestry, natural resources, environmental science, or a related field is typically required. Programs commonly include subjects such as biology, ecology, forest measurement, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Some positions or jurisdictions may also require licensing or professional certification.
Future Outlook
Employment of foresters is projected to grow 1% from 2024 to 2034, with about 200 additional positions projected over the decade. Despite the modest growth rate, employment opportunities will continue as workers retire or move into other occupations. Growing concerns about wildfire, forest health, environmental protection, and responsible management of natural resources are expected to support continued demand for forestry professionals.
Work Environment
Foresters work in offices, laboratories, and outdoors, sometimes in remote or rugged locations. Their work can include field inspections, mapping forests, monitoring tree health, overseeing harvesting or reforestation, and responding to forest-management and wildfire concerns. The job can be physically demanding, with some foresters walking long distances and working in changing weather conditions
Recommended High School Courses
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Physical Education
- Horticulture
- Plants & Soil Science
- Forestry
- Geography
- Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
- Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
- Mathematics - Using mathematics to solve problems.
- Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
- Operation and Control - Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
- Operation Monitoring - Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
- Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Systems Analysis - Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Systems Evaluation - Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
- Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
- Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
- Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
- Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
- Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
- English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
- Geography - Knowledge of principles and methods for describing the features of land, sea, and air masses, including their physical characteristics, locations, interrelationships, and distribution of plant, animal, and human life.
- Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
- Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
- Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
- Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Control Precision - The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Far Vision - The ability to see details at a distance.
- Flexibility of Closure - The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
- Selective Attention - The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Trunk Strength - The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without 'giving out' or fatiguing.
- Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Assess compliance with environmental laws.
- Manage agricultural or forestry operations.
- Develop plans to manage natural or renewable resources.
- Determine methods to minimize environmental impact of activities.
- Inspect condition of natural environments.
- Direct natural resources management or conservation programs.
- Plan environmental research.
- Measure environmental characteristics.
- Monitor environmental impacts of production or development activities.
- Cultivate land.
- Advise others about environmental management or conservation.
- Plan natural resources conservation or restoration programs.
- Research crop management methods.
- Develop agricultural methods.
- Conduct research of processes in natural or industrial ecosystems.
- Develop educational programs.
Schools
Auburn University
Berea College
Birmingham Southern Colle...
Brandeis University
Colorado State University...
Humboldt State University
Iowa State University
Lawrence University
Louisiana State Universit...
Louisiana Tech University
Northern Arizona Universi...
Pennsylvania State Univer...
Purdue University-main Ca...
Randolph-macon College
Southern Illinois Univers...
Suny College Of Environme...
Texas A & M University- C...
University Of Alaska- Fai...
University Of California-...
University Of Georgia
University Of Idaho
University Of Kentucky
University Of Maine- Fort...
University Of Massachuset...
Willamette University
Yale University
Bishop's University
Brandon University
Collège Boréal
Lakehead University- O...
Maritime College Of Fo...
Université Laval
University Of New Brun...
University Of Northern...
University Of Quebec-...
Approx Salary Expectation
Low End:
$49,000.00 /yr
Avg/Med:
$71,000.00 /yr
High End:
$103,000.00 /yr
References
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/.
Trend Analysis - Explorer the Market, Labour Market Information, Government of Canada https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/trend-analysis.
O*NET OnLine, National Center for O*NET Development, https://www.onetonline.org/.
Trend Analysis - Explorer the Market, Labour Market Information, Government of Canada https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/trend-analysis.
O*NET OnLine, National Center for O*NET Development, https://www.onetonline.org/.