Development of an Interdisciplinary Master of Forestry Program Focused on Forest Management in a Changing Climate

Abstract

Concerted efforts are required to achieve the essential UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. This concept paper is focused on the development of a new Master of Forestry (MF) degree program at our University of Applied Sciences (UAS). With this move, we want to outline how capacity building and valuable synergy effects can be obtained from close cooperation in teaching and research, in order to educate our scientifically trained and practice-oriented forestry students in applying new management responses to natural disturbance impacts and sustainable use of terrestrial natural resources for forest resource-dependent communities. Specifically, we show how the emergent issues of global warming and the associated increased vulnerability of temperate deciduous forests can be tackled. Actions to overcome knowledge transfer barriers will provide sound solutions for SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (climate action), SDG 15 (life on land), and SDG 17 (partnerships to achieve the goal). Focusing on the Global Sustainable Development Goals can trigger intra and inter-faculty processes of cooperation, exchange programs, and optimized interfaces of previously separated disciplines that complement each other perfectly to form a knowledge hub.

The implementation of SDG12 in and from higher education institutions: universities as laboratories for generating sustainable cities

“…Other topics that have been reported closer to the theme of consumption and production and sustainable cities and communities are supply chains (Lazar et al, 2021), built environment or green building (Wen et al, 2020;Lopez Duarte, 2021), smart affordable and clean energy production and consumption (de Miguel Ramos and Laurenti, 2020; Kermani et al, 2021), knowledge hubs (Walentowski et al, 2020), and use of natural resources (Kiwfo et al, 2021), circular economy and e-waste disposal and awareness (Siddiqua et al, 2022). Under the energy consumption topic (Garcia et al, 2021), compared the greenhouse emissions associated with conventional (346,569 kg CO 2 eq/year) and solar absorption (144,452 CO 2 eq/year) cooling systems installed at a university building, suggesting that new technology should be used in universities to decrease energy consumption patterns.…”

Challenge-based, interdisciplinary learning for sustainability in doctoral education

“…Several studies have recently addressed the lack of interdisciplinary approaches in HE to support the role of forestry in climate change mitigation and to prepare future practitioners to cope with complex socio-ecological systems (Andrade et al , 2014; Öberg, 2010; Vogt et al , 2016; Walentowski et al , 2020). However, to reflect the value of wood-based products, great care needs to be taken to analyse the entire wood value chain, to understand the stakeholder ecosystem and to design wood products, structures and buildings, so that they can be used in the best overall way to help combat climate change and reduce the over-exploitation of resources.…”