Overview

The course starts with natural processes in forest history. Do we need foresters at all? Forests are, in fact, influenced by policy at many governance levels; global, regional, national, and local. Legislation, regulation, grant schemes, certification, and other incentives are put in place to control and influence what we do as foresters. The course explores a number of questions. How do forests change as a result of human activity at landscape scale? How do policy measures interact with natural processes in forests over time? How do circumstances vary between different countries and continents? What can the history of forest development and forestry policies teach us? How can government policy tools like grants and tax deliver intended policy goals? Do non governmental standards and certification deliver? How can they go wrong? How much should we plan and control?

Structure - the module is divided into three units.

Forests, Nature, and Human Interaction. This explores deforestation and regeneration of forests in different parts of the world. It moves on to look more at British forestry policy and the story of the British forest expansion of the 20th century, finishing with current up to the minute controversies.

Forestry Policy, Ends, Means and Errors. This unit explores the international policy framework, sustainable forest management and available policy tools. It ends by discussing current policy in the UK.

Plans, Management, and Problems. This explores the tools of certification and concepts of forest management planning.

This is a distance learning module. The module materials include guided reading materials and comprehensive reading list, short Panopto webcasts and interactive discussion forums.

Assessment Strategy

-threshold -Work covers the fundamentals of forestry policy and history, but is based mainly on material provided during the module, shows little evidence of supplementary reading or original information and lacks critical analysis.Equivalent mark: 50%+ or C

-good -Work is reasonably well-argued, showing good understanding and knowledge of the topic, evidence of supplementary reading, original information and some critical thought.Equivalent mark: 60%+ or B

-excellent -Work is very well-argued, showing excellent understanding and depth of knowledge of the topic, evidence of substantial supplementary reading, sound collection and use of original information, and much critical thought. Originality of ideas.Equivalent mark: 70%+ or A