Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Pippa Hackett launched Teagasc’s new marteloscope silviculture training programme in Oak Park, Co. Carlow last week. Teagasc Forestry Development officer and ProSilva Ireland committee member Jonathan Spazzi co-ordinated the project with collaboration from fellow ProSilva committee member and forester Padraig O’Tuama.
Jonathan explained the background to the project; what a marteloscope is, how it relates to CCF training, who will be trained in it and for what reason.
” Land owners increasingly plant and manage forests for multiple reasons. The main goal here is the integration of multiple benefits from forests: sustaining profitable timber production, enjoying diverse ecosystem services while overall enhancing forest resilience in the face of climate disruption. In this context, there is increasing demand for Close-to-Nature management system for the development of stable, diverse and productive permanent forests.”
“Many Irish forest owners are new to forest management and are still developing their skills base. To assist with this and the continued evolution of Irish Forestry, Teagasc’s Forestry Development Department , in partnership with the European Forestry institute, and in collaboration with Prosilva Ireland and Coillte has developed a programme of “marteloscope” workshops. Marteloscopes are specially prepared forest plots which are commonly used across Europe for training purposes. In essence they are an outdoor-classroom forest facility for training participants in tree selection and tree marking.”
“This new training resource adopts a facilitation style format and encourages participants to learn-by-doing, leading to group discussions and valuable peer-to-peer learning. It includes the use of touch screen tablets for thinning simulations while in the forest, allowing participants to practice new skills and test out in real time different continuous cover management options.”
A busy schedule of workshops is planned for 2022 to include forest owner groups, foresters and forestry students. For further information on the project visit:
https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/management/continuous-cover-forestry/the-marteloscope-training-network/
