19 February 2024
Registrations are now open for the 2024 Gottstein Understanding Forest Science course. The action is centred at Mooloolaba on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane. For the first time the course is coming to Queensland and organisers are excited as they proceed to finalise the program.
Development of the program is well progressed and the course will run from Sunday afternoon 28th July until lunchtime on Friday 2nd August 2024.
The Gottstein courses receive strong support from industry and researcher presenters who are subject matter experts relating to forest science and management. Learning sessions with guest presenters will be held on at least three of the five days of the popular course. Interesting field trips are planned across two days to augment the classroom learning.
People from Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland, regional NSW, Sydney and Victoria gathered at Coffs Harbour for the last course in July 2023. They were joined by an agricultural science student from Curtin University, Western Australia, through a Gottstein alliance with the Steve Stevenson Memorial Trust Fund that commenced in 2020. A large majority of participants ranked the course "excellent" and the Trust 's course organisers are incorporating feedback from their experience into the next program.
Course field trips offer the chance to go into forests and plantations to engage on-site with forest scientists and/or managers. The field trips help to illustrate the many operational aspects involved in planting, growing, planning for harvest, harvesting then once again preparing to replant or regenerating trees on that area of land. Course convenor Helen Murray has noticed, “the huge effort needed to meet all environmental and other regulations set around forestry is phenomenal. I notice that newer people to the sector come away impressed with the care that forest managers and scientists put into their work.”
The course has proven to be relevant for people at any stage of their career and from a wide array of industry roles. “We have feedback from course attendees who are foresters themselves, some with decades of experience, confirming they got a lot out of the program.
Details of the course program will be released on the website once ready – which is expected to be late April. In the meantime interested people can check out last year’s program to gain a sense of what areas are covered. To be placed on a notification list for when registrations open – go to the contact page or email team@gottsteintrust.org