Concern Of Forestry Graduates For Jobs

Forests are rightly called the lungs of the earth. They are the most essential part of our ecosystem and are pivotal for maintaining the balance in the food chain and the natural equilibrium on the planet. Forests cover almost 31% of the earth’s surface: They are a habitat for wildlife and some of the rarest-of-rare animals and plants on the earth. Humans have been using forest resources for thousands of years. As much as the forests have provided humans with livelihood, humans have not given back to the forest as much as they should have. And this overuse and imbalance and human greed disturbed the ecosystem, leading to global warming and climate change. I am a forestry student and have been fascinated by forests all my life. I want to convey the message to the administration so that they know forestry graduates and postgraduates are best suited for forestry jobs. However, the government has been ignoring us for the past two decades. Recently, the government withdrew the forester posts that had been advertised earlier. Nevertheless, only forestry graduates/postgraduates should be eligible to apply for these posts. Since 2020, JKSSB has made no recruitment of forestry graduates, and as such, these graduates have been facing hardships.
The government should revise SRO 335 of J&K Forest (Subordinate) Service Recruitment Rules, 1991. If a forestry graduate is ineligible for forester posts, then why the government is spending millions of rupees on forestry and forest science colleges and universities across India. Forestry students almost spend a decade in their studies: four years of a bachelor’s degree (B.Sc), four years of a master’s degree (M.Sc), and four to six years of doctoral degrees (PhD). They gain knowledge and work for conservation and restoration of forests, forest ecosystems, wildlife, human–forest interactions, etc. Currently, almost 1,500 qualify B.Sc Forestry every year from different colleges and universities in different Indian states. Despite devoting all their years of study to forestry and forest science, they, unfortunately, struggle for jobs because of the lack of proper national and state recruitment policies. The administration/government needs to rethink why policymakers and administrators are sidelining forestry graduates and why the degree courses in forestry are not enough to get a good job.
(The author is pursuing M.Sc. Forestry at Ambedkar University Agra. Views are his own)
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