FORRU-CMU provide comprehensive education and extension services that will improve the capacity of all of the stakeholders to contribute together to forest restoration initiatives. Such an outreach programme might include training courses, workshops and extension visits, supported by publications and other educational materials, each tailored to meet the different needs of each of the various stakeholder groups (e.g. government officials, NGOs, local communities, teachers, school children and so on).
Education team
As the project becomes more widely known, however, you should expect a rapid increase in demand for education and training services, which will begin to overwhelm the research staff, distracting them from vital research activities. It is better to recruit a team of education officers, with specialised experience of environmental education techniques, who are dedicated to providing stakeholders with the knowledge and technical support they need to implement restoration projects.
Education programme
Once the educators are familiar with the FORRU’s knowledgebase, they must design curricula to meet the very different needs of the various stakeholders involved in forest restoration. An education programme can include the following activities:
- workshops to introduce the general concepts of forest restoration and to present techniques and results;
- more detailed training in forest restoration best practices for practitioners who are responsible for running nurseries and implementing planting programmes;
- extension visits to forest restoration projects that aim to provide on-site technical support directly to the people involved in implementing projects;
- hosting interested visitors to the unit such as scientists, donors, journalists and so on;
- helping with the supervision of college student thesis projects;
- presenting research results at conferences.
Special events for school children and a train-the-teachers programme (½ day to several days, for camps and teacher training) could also be undertaken as children have the most to gain from forest restoration.
Education materials
Publications are important educational outputs of a FORRU. Producing them can include a participatory component, involving consultations with and inputs from workshop participants. This ensures that the information provided by the FORRU is of maximum benefit for local people, and also that it makes best use of indigenous knowledge. Examples of publications are:
- Pamphlets and handouts: Useful for the unit’s staff and visitors (particularly existing and potential funders) and should be both informative and help to publicise the unit. As the research programme develops, more technical literature should be produced, such as species data sheets and production schedules.
- Practical manuals: The manual serves as a text book for training both stakeholders during workshops and extension events and newly recruited staff or visiting workers that should contain i) the basic principles and techniques of forest restoration, ii) descriptions of target forest types, and iii) descriptions and propagation methods for those tree species deemed suitable for restoration projects
- Research papers and an international audience: To share research results with other people working in a similar field and also promote correspondence, discussion and exchange visits. They assist other researchers in developing their own research programmes.
1: Young Forest Restorers—Action Book
This user-friendly booklet guides school children through a series of hands-on forest-restoration activities from seed collection and germination to growing trees in nurseries, tree planting,...
2: Exploring the Environment & Nature of Chiang Mai: a Teachers' Handbook—ENGLISH VERSION
The Thai version of the manual received 3rd prize in the writing category of the Green Globe Institute Awards. Phai and Som (our education officers), who were primary writers and designers of...
3: Restoring Tropical Forests: a Practical Guide
Available in English, Spanish and French The authors at a publishers' meeting, Kew 2012Restoring Tropical Forests is a hands-on guide to restoring degraded tropical forest ecosystems. Based...
4: Grow a Forest with Lin and Sai - an illustrated story for children
This book is available in a multitude of languages and is open-access. See the download panel on the right, to get a copy in your language. If you cannot find your language there ... you are...
5: The role of botanic gardens in the science and practice of ecological restoration
ABSTRACT: Many of the skills and resources, associated with botanic gardens and arboreta, including plant taxonomy, horticulture and seed bank management, are fundamental to ecological restoration...
6: A Technical Strategy for Restoring Krabi’s Lowland Tropical Forest
This report is one of the outputs from the project “Gurney’s Pitta Research and Conservation in Thailand and Myanmar”, implemented by the U.K.’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)...
7: How to Plant a Forest: The Principles and Practice of Restoring Tropical Forests
FORRU-CMU's second practical training manual was published in 2005. It includes generic principles of restoration theory and practice, applicable throughout the tropics, as well as descriptions...
8: Saving Thailand's Forest: a helping hand from Britain's Darwin Initiative
Kirby Doak was the second of several skilled and enthusiastic Australian Youth Ambassadors, who uplifted FORRU-CMU's education and outreach program, from 2001 to 2010. In this article in Chiang...
9: Reaping the rewards of reforestation
Although rapidly growing human populations make continued tropical destruction and the accompanying loss of biodiversity seem inevitable, Hmong hill-tribe villagers in the north of Doi Suthep-Pui...
10: Implementing the Agenda
The main outcome of FORRU-CMU's first international workshop was the "Chiang Mai Research Agenda for the Restoration of Degraded Forest Lands for Wildlife Conservation in Southeast Asia". This...