The decline in number of forest scientists (2/5)

Note: This is the second in a series of posts for this newsletter that will run in November 2022. Each post focuses on the research capacity in the forestry sector.?

I received an email last week from a forestry organization that manages hundreds of thousands of acres of timberlands. The person was interested to know if I had any leads of recent graduates or others that were interested in a quantitative position they had recently posted that could also tackle some applied forestry research.

I considered it for a while. I realized not a single person came to mind that might even be remotely interested in the position. Most people I’m aware of are content in their current positions, or young professionals have already landed positions before they graduate.

This might be a reflection of the labor shortages and talent acquisition problems that many organizations are faced with in today’s economy. But it’s also a realization that there is a large gap between how many forestry researchers we need and how many are currently available in the forestry workforce.

“Erosion” of forestry research

The capacity for forestry research across the US “continues to erode”. So says McGinley, Guldin, and Cubbage in a 2019 Journal of Forestry article. Their study quantified recent trends in research and development in the forestry sector.

Their research finds that the number of forest research scientists has declined 12% from 2002 to 2016. This decline is seen in forest industry researchers, University faculty, and USDA Forest Service scientists:

The traditional role of the forest scientist working for a forestry or forest products company has largely been removed. This is particularly alarming, since data is increasingly being used to drive decision-making on key issues to solve forest and natural resource problems.

Even prior to the decline, the number of researchers in forestry is surprisingly low. This is alarming given there are 250 companies that comprise the pulp, paper, and paperboard mill industry in the US. The US forest products industry generates 5% of the manufacturing GDP to the country, or $169 billion annually.

The paper by McGinley and others is a great read that uncovers many of these trends. As I wrote about last week, the changing landscape in research funding in forestry and different ownership patterns has largely contributed to the declining number of researchers.?

Filling the forestry researcher pipeline is not a problem that’s solved overnight. I’ve long been a proponent of encouraging young people to get into forestry at the earliest age possible. I encourage each of you to do this with as many young people as you can.

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Next week, I look forward to attending the virtual Forest Inventory and Analysis Science Stakeholder Meeting. Registration is free and is still open!