About the Graduate Certificate in Forestry
The Graduate Certificate in Forestry has been developed to equip current industry professionals with the essential capabilities required to meet contemporary challenges.
It fosters a new generation of forestry practitioners and leaders by offering a pathway for upskilling the workforce and preparing graduates for diverse roles in forest management.
The course ensures the sector remains robust, adaptable, and appropriately skilled to address future challenges, particularly those posed by climate change.
The course is delivered through a collaboration between leading Australian universities in forestry research and education: the University of Tasmania, the Australian National University, Adelaide University (formally University of South Australia), the University of Melbourne, and the University of the Sunshine Coast.
Course structure
The first unit, Introduction to Forestry, and the final unit, Forest Operations, are offered by the University of Tasmania. The other two units are offered by partner universities - University of Melbourne and Adelaide University.
- The course is designed so that you take the unit Introduction to Forestry as your first unit.
- The other three units may be studied in any order. If wishing to complete the course in a single year, Introduction to Forestry may be taken concurrently with the other unit offered in first semester - Plantation Silviculture.
Units to be undertaken by cross-institutional study
Carbon Forestry (offered by University of Melbourne) See https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/2025/subjects/frst90032
Plantation Silviculture (offered by Adelaide University) https://adelaide.jobreadyplus.com/apply_to_courses/76533
How to apply
Each year, in November, industry sponsors will advise the course coordinator of number of students they are sponsoring for the next year's intake (minimum of twenty, maximum of 25). Applicants are put forward by industry to complete the course, this is only for those people currently employed in the forestry industry.
FAQ's
No
Students will spend the majority of their time learning in industry workplaces such as forests, policy & regulatory environments and manufacturing & processing facilities.
Yes. There are five (5) days in person for each unit of the course.
Aboriginal perspectives are embedded in each unit and are a current running through the entire course. Aboriginal and indigenous experts and practitioners present in each unit, both in the online sessions and as part of the residential schools.
Each residential school includes a field visit to an area of forest managed by local traditional owners and management approaches are discussed and compared/contrasted with commercial and other approaches.
For instance, in the Introduction to Forestry unit students visit a site in northern Tasmania that has been managed using cultural burning for some years and the ecology is contrasted with adjacent sites that have not benefited from the same management.