The past few decades in both Germany and Britain, as elsewhere in the World, has seen a major decline in the dominance of the forestry profession by the state forest service. The state has become a minor employer of forestry graduates who now seek jobs in a wide range of forestry related areas. Arguably a career in forestry has never been more varied, exciting or challenging than at the start of the 21st Century. This widened choice should be of benefit to students but has meant that curricula have had to be redesigned, sometimes frequently, to match the evolving situation. Jobs are not hard to find and the vast majority of graduates at all levels, and in both countries, do end up working in forestry or forestry related fields. Surveys of earnings indicate that foresters are at least as well paid as their equivalents in other professions.
There is every reason to believe that the universities and colleges in Germany and Britain have responded to the new challenges through curriculum revisions and the introduction of new course at all levels. In some instance the response might have been a little late but none have failed to respond. In most instances some fairly radical changes have been introduced, and forestry is frequently ahead of other faculties an advocating change.
The stimulus to carry out curriculum revision was not only the profound changes to the profession, particularly in the last twenty years, but also a steady fall in the numbers applying to study forestry, a slow fall that may have started some time in the 1970s. This fall can be seen in the numbers applying to study forestry over the first part of the decade studied in this report (1992-2001). Thus, students accepted onto the traditional forestry degree fell between 1992 and 1996 by 28% in Germany and by 17% in Britain. Thereafter the patterns were very different. There was a further fall of 51% over the next five years in Britain (although somewhat offset by new degree courses in the one-time colleges) but a complete recovery in the numbers accepted in Germany. In Britain the numbers accepted on technical diploma and certificate programmes rose quite significantly over the first half of the decade but then, like the numbers on degree courses, fell again to levels well below that of 1992.
By the end of the decade few institutions in Britain were able to fill all the places on the forestry programmes they were offering, whereas previously they had been able to select from among the best applicants. The same difficulty in recruiting students may apply to the Fachhochschules in Germany, although not to the universities there. The extent of the problem in Britain is illustrated by the fall in applications for entry to particular programmes, by the end of the decade the number applying for a post-graduate MSc was about 50% of that ten years earlier, the equivalent figures for particular Bachelor, Diploma and Certificate programmes being 30%, 10% and 70%. A decline to 22% of the numbers at the start of the decade was recorded by one of the Fachhochschule in Germany but numbers applying to other institutions in that country seem to be holding up fairly well.
Although in Germany the fall in numbers accepted on forestry programmes has been reversed there is some small suggestion that this may result more from accepting a higher proportion of those applying rather than from an increase in the number of applicants. More evidence is needed but it would be too early to conclude that there is a significant new interest in studying forestry in Germany.
The long-term slow decline in numbers wishing to study forestry in Britain, and to a lesser extent in Germany, is hard to explain. Even harder is the recent almost catastrophic decline in Britain. It may be that the major curriculum revisions carried out by the German universities explains the slight resurgence in enrolment on forestry degree programmes there. However, the pattern shown by the acceptances do not seem to reflect the differing timing of such changes between the universities, nor does there appear to be any consistency with the position at the Fachhochschules. Furthermore, not dissimilar changes in curricula at British universities and colleges do not seem to have prevented the decline. One difference between Germany and Britain, at least with respect to the old universities, is that in Germany forestry faculties have retained their identity whereas in Britain identity has largely been lost in a mania for mergers.
A possible explanation sometimes advanced for the longer term decline is that there is now considerable competition from newer degree programmes in the general field of environmental management. Yet many of these are also suffering from declining numbers. Indeed, in Britain this decline over the past five years has sometimes been as severe as that for forestry.
The gloomy situation in Britain should not be allowed to obscure the relatively more healthy position at the German universities, although the situation does not seem to be so rosy for the Fachhochschules. Perhaps in Germany the image of forestry as a rewarding career, at least for university graduates, is starting to improve. Quite the reverse seems to be the case in Britain. Whether it is simply that school leavers do not have a good image of forestry, or whether there is a wider problem that their education has not inculcated in them any sense of altruism and service, is perhaps the subject of a wider debate. It is interesting that an exceptionally large number of mature students do elect to study forestry.
