Forestry and Conservation Career Highlights

• Forestsry and Conservation workers spend their work time outdoors, often in poor weather and many times in isolated areas.
• Some formal education or training is helpful in obtaining the best jobs.
• The jobs are usually physically demanding and frequently hazardous.
• A slight increase in overall employment is projected over the next decade.

The Work

Our forests are a rich natural resource. They provide beauty and tranquility, recreational areas, and lumber for commercial use. Many different types of workers are needed to harvest the forests and woodlands. Forest and conservation workers assist in development, maintainance, and protection of the forests by replenishing the woodlands with new seedlings, fighting insects and diseases that attack trees and other plants in the forests, and helping to control soil erosion. Many thousands of acres of forests are harvested each year by timber-cutting and logging workers. The timber provides valuable raw material for consumer and industrial products.

Workers carry out a variety of duties and tasks to reforest and conserve timberlands. They also maintain forest facilities, such as roads and campsites, and some forestry workers, aptly called tree planters, plant seedlings to reforest timberland areas. These workers also remove diseased, dead or unwanted trees with power saws or handsaws, spray trees with insecticides and fungicides to kill insects and to protect against disease, and apply herbicides on undesirable brush and trees to reduce competing vegetation. In private industry, forest workers usually work under the direction of professional foresters. They generally paint boundary lines, help when burning is necessary, mark and measure trees, and keep good record of those trees examined and counted. Those working for State and local governments or under contract to the Federal Government may also cut and clear brush and debris from camp trails, roadsides, and designated camping areas. Duties may also include cleaning kitchens and rest rooms at parks and recreational facilities and campgrounds.

Forest nurseries are another area in which forestry workers may find employment. There, they sort tree seedlings, discarding those not meeting set standards of root structure, stem development, and foliage.

Forest workers also find employment on tree farms. There, they plant, grow, and harvest trees of all kinds. Job duties depend on the type of farm; those working on specialty tree farms, such as Christmas tree or ornamental trees farms, are responsible for grooming the trees to control the growth, to increase the density of foliage, and to improve the trees' shapes. These workers’ may also plant seedlings, spray pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides to control weed growth, insects, disease, as well as help in harvesting the trees.

Other forest workers collect, various products from the forests, such as decorative evergreens, pine cones, barks, moss, and other wild plant life. Other types of workers may tap trees for sap to make syrup or even for production of chemicals.

Timber-cutting and logging is performed by several different types of workers who make up a logging crew. First fallers, more commonly known as tree fallers, cut down trees, using various types of power aws and tree cutting equipment. Then, choke setters fasten steel cables or chains, called chokers, around logs that are then dragged by tractors or by the cable-yarding systems to the area where the logs are separated by species and type of product, and loaded onto trucks. Other workers, called rigging slingers and chasers, set up and dismantle the cables and guy wires of the yarding system, while log sorters, , and chippers sort, identify logs, depending on type of tree, size of log, and ownership. They also maintain and operate machines that chip up logs.

Equipment operators on a logging crew perform a myriad of tasks and duties. Using tree harvesters, they fell the trees, cut off the branches, and then cut the logs into prescribed lengths. Driving tractors and other machines called skidders or forwarders, they drag and move logs from the felling site to the log landing area for loading. They may also operate machinery to lift and load logs into trucks.

Workers called log graders or scalers check logs for defects, measure logs, and estimate the value of logs or pulpwood. Graders sometimes use hand-held devices to enter data about individual trees; later, the data can be downloaded to a central computer. Other forest workers may hike through forests to determine logging conditions, while others may clear areas of brush and other vegetation to prepare for logging activities or to promote the growth of desirable trees.

The timber-cutting and logging is normally handled several small crews of four to eight workers. Typically, a includes one or two tree fallers, or alternatively one tree harvesting machine operator; a bucker, two logging skidder operators who pull cut trees to the loading area, and one equipment operator to load the logs onto trucks. Most crews are employed by self-employed logging contractors who have logging experience, the capital to invest in the logging equipment, and the ability to run a small business. Often the contractors work beside their crews as managers and frequently are the operators of one or more of the logging machines.

Logging jobs are dangerous and very labor intensive, even though the equipment has improved considerably and operations are more mechanized. Forestry jobs require various degrees of skill, from basically unskilled tasks of manually moving logs, branches, and equipment to the highly skilled use of chain saws to bring massive tress down, and heavy equipment to move and load logs onto trucks. To keep costs down, many workers maintain and repair the equipment. A skilled, experienced logging worker can perform many different duties and tasks.

Working Conditions

Forestry and logging work is physically demanding, and can be dangerous. The work is conducted outdoors, sometimes in bad weather and freqently in isolated vicinities. Some logging camps are far from the nearest towns, and loggers must commute long distances from their homes and live in logging camp bunkhouses. Most logging activities involve lifting, climbing, and other strenuous physical activities, although machinery helps with some of the more heavy labor. Logging involves hazardous conditions, such as falling branches, difficult terrain, and falling trees. Strong winds can create hazards or even halt logging operations. Hearing protection devices is necessary due to the high noise level of felling and skidding operations. Working in such conditions over long periods of time the noise could impair one’s hearing. To avoid injury, workers must use experience, exercise of caution, and use appropriate safety measures and equipment—such as hardhats, eye and ear protection, and safety clothing and boots.

Forest and conservation workers generally experience less hazardous work conditions than those of loggers. Forestry aides or forest workers may have to walk long distances through wooded areas to perform their work duties.

Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement

Often forest, conservation, and logging workers learn their work skills from on-the-job training, with training from supervisors and more experienced workers. However, many of the larger logging companies and some trade associations offer training programs for workers operating machinery and equipment. Safety training is an important, and is required of all logging workers.

While a college education is generally not required for most forest, conservation, and logging occupations, many vocational and technical schools, and a few community colleges, offer programs for a two-year technical degree in forestry, wildlife management, conservation, and forest harvesting. This two-year degree can be very helpful in obtaining a good job.

Prior experience working at a nursery can be helpful in obtaining a job as a forest or conservation worker. Logging workers typically advance manual labor to operation of logging equipment. Inexperienced workers usually begin as laborers, and with experience and learned skills may advance to equipment operators or jobs involving the management of an operation.

Obviously, forest, conservation, and logging workers must be in good health and be able to, and enjoy working outdoors every day; they must have the physical strength and stamina required to perform the tasks of the job. The ability to work in a team environoment is also necessary. Good motor skills and coordination are important qualities for equipment operators, who frequently are responsible for the repair and maintenance of the machinery as well.

Employment 

In 2004, forest, conservation, and logging workers held about 92,000:

• Logging equipment operators 43,000
• Forest and conservation workers 17,000
• Fallers 15,000
• Log graders and scalers 9,000
• Logging workers, all other 7,000

Approximately 45 percent of all forest and conservation workers work for State and local government. Twenty one percent are employed by private companies that run tree farms, or supply services to agriculture and forestry industries. A few of these workers are employed in sawmills and planing mills. Employment is concentrated in the Western and Southeast Univted States, where there are many national and private forests and parks. More than 30 percent of the workers are self-employed forest, conservation, and logging workers.

Job Outlook

Overall employment of forest, conservation, and logging workers is expected to increase slower than the average for all occupations over the next decade. Most job openings will result from replacement needs, as logging workers move to other jobs that are less physically demanding and dangerous, or retire. More over, many forestry workers are youths not committed to the work for a long-term basis.

Land set aside to protect natural resources or wildlife habitats helps to create more jobs for forest and conservation workers.Recent Federal legislation may create more jobs for forest and conservation workers in those areas of the Nation with drier climates and higher susceptibility to forest fires, due to the need to prevent destructive wildfires by thinning the forests and setting controlled burns.

More logging jobs may be created due to new federal policy allowing some access to federal timberland. Some job opportunities may also will come from owners of privately owned forests and tree farms.

Weather can stop logging operations during the muddy spring season and the cold winter months, depending on the geographic region of the work area. Changes in the level of construction, especially residential construction, also affects logging activities in the short term.

Expected Earnings

Earnings depend on the job and the experience of the worker, ranging from the minimum wage in some entry level positions to about $25.46 an hour for experienced tree fallers. In May 2004, median hourly wages for forest, conservation, and logging occupations were:

• Logging workers, all other $14.29
• Fallers 13.23
• Logging equipment operators 13.18
• Log graders and scalers 12.29
• Forest and conservation workers 9.51

Earnings depend on the size of the operation by geographic area. Workers in the largest operations often earn more than those in the smaller ones; while workers in Alaska and the Northwest can earn more than those workers in the South, where the cost of living is generally lower. Those workers employed by State and local governments or for large, private firms generally earn more generous benefits than do workers in smaller firms.

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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor