New courses related to socio-economic faculties including extension needs to be developed and promoted in forestry education, argues Dr Binoo P Boney.
Dr Binoo P Boney is Associate Professor (Agricultural Extension) at Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissor, Kerala (binoobonny@gmail.com)
There are many topics that need to be incorporated in forestry education. Tribal culture, tribal knowledge, rights of tribals, etc should find place in the curriculum. Community based NRM, community forestry, environmental services, etc should be relevant topics.
One good effort to highlight the plight of forest, forest dependent communities along with suggestions to improve the scenario. The statement that the growing crisis of forest loss and related problems seem to be aggravated by the command and control bureaucratic model followed by the Indian forest department-is a perennial complaint & point of argument between academics, foresters, researchers, development practioners since long The list of institution offering course/degree programmes in forestry makes it useful for many who often look for this information and hardly find it from a single source. There is scope for attending the extension needs of forest dwelling livestock keepers too. We once studied Gujjar community who rear buffaloes inside the forest. Pl see my blog http://www.wca2014.org/milking-the-forests/#.U9ZXQUA0qho