Faculty of Forestry

comprehensive resident instruction programme for BSc, MSc and PhD Forestry at this faculty with the objective to impart quality professional education for providing competent, practical oriented and skillful human resource base of professional forestry and post graduates is being carried out since 1986-87. The first batch of forestry graduates completed their degree in 1990-91. The faculty regularly strives to attain distinction. The learning process and its standard has been continuously improved and as a reason the faculty has been accredited with “A” grade by ICFRE in 2011 and 2017 and ICAR in 2010-11 and 2017. The faculty of forestry currently stands shifted in 2015 to its allocated campus as Benhama, Ganderbal. The campus is facilitated by a two storied administrative complex catering to class rooms, laboratories and office chambers of teaching and non-teaching staff. During past 10 years, more than 20 students have secured top positions in ICAR JRF Examinations. The students of this Faculty have succeeded in making their careers at top positions in the reputed organizations. The faculty achieves the distinction of having a pass out student placement percentage of more than 90%.
The faculty having recently shifted to its newly allocated campus at Faculty of Forestry, Benhama Ganderbal is still in infancy and demands special attention in view of its importance in providing trained manpower to the concerned department(s) besides a strong research base with respect to silviculture, agroforestry, forest improvement, forest resource inventory, wildlife and forest products. The faculty by virtue of its location makes it unique in temperate forestry across the country. The faculty with its rich resource base and manpower, is continuously striving in terms of species and seed source evaluation, their characterization, resource inventory and mapping, clonal forestry, vulnerability and climate change. The faculty of forestry is constituted of the following disciplines:
• Silviculture and Agroforestry
• Forest Biology and Tree Improvement
• Natural Resource Management
• Forest Products and Utilization
• Wildlife Sciences
• Basic and Social Sciences

Mission

The faculty would continue to provide thrust on entrepreneurship at undergraduate level, professionalism combined with entrepreneurship at graduate level; and specialized grooming at the post graduate level in the emerging areas of forestry.
A strong human resource backup would be provided to the State Forest Department for meeting the challenges of scarcity of trained manpower able to deliver with authenticity and integrity.
Research would be reoriented based on multidisciplinary approach rather than a rigid one focused on enhanced.
The faculty would strive to achieve reliable, cost effective and time bound inventorization of forest resources to study different relationships between different variables using the fast emerging remote sensing and GIS technology.
The Faculty of Forestry would devise a stage wise framework for exploring the possibility of Clonal forestry with conifers and promising broad leaved species for production of quality planting material (QPM) on a sustainable basis.

Vission

To achieve excellence in temperate forestry education, research and extension for sustainable forest development and livelihood security of farming community

Goals

Forestry sciences like other sciences is fast emerging in the form of its different specialized fields including Silviculture and Agroforestry, Natural Resource Management, Forest Biology and Tree Improvement, Non Wood Forest Products, Forestry extension etc. A strong human resource generation would be targeted to meet the requirement of professionals by Forest Department for meeting the challenges of scarcity of trained manpower who can deliver with authenticity and integrity.
The faculty of Forestry would continue to offer research based support aimed to push production and industrial forestry to meet the requirements of exponentially growing population for food, fodder, fuel wood, fibre and small timber. Region specific agroforestry systems would be worked on a viable option to meet these demands on a short and long term basis with respect to Plywood industries, Cricket bat industry, Pulp and paper industry, match industry, Food industry (Honey and wild fruits) and other cottage industries like wicker work etc.
The faculty of forestry would take up inventorization and productivity assessment of grasslands of the region which offer huge potential for sustainable livestock production under natural grasslands. The grassland production still one of the underutilized and least studied resources of J&K especially Kashmir valley is slated to be one of the promising forest production venture in the future. Furthermore, the grazing pressure on these natural grasslands both in temperate and cold arid region of Ladakh demands research based interventions on priority.
The faculty of forestry having recognized the huge push for forest based medicinal and aromatic herbs in the international market identitfiesNon Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) both cultivated and wild as indispensable source of alternative medicine in the region. The faculty would strive research based on medicinal and aromatic plants under different agroforestry models resulting into production maximization, revenue optimization and sustainable employment generation through a strong research base in forestry that would go a long way in improving socio-economic set up of forest based rural community.
Forest resources being one of the most dynamic natural features are under consistent anthropogenic pressure due to different direct and indirect drivers. The traditional inventory assessment techniques would be gradually replaced by more reliable, cost and time effective methods using remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS) and the Faculty of Forestry having already taken the initiative consistently strives to enhance its potential to provide techniques and human resource in the arena.
The faculty would offer research based support on long time amelioration of degraded forest areas which have lost their biodiversity and productive capacity due to illicit felling, landslide erosion, forest fire, stone quarrying etc.
The faculty of forestry would explore Clonal forestry still at nascent stage in the region which offers huge potential to address low productivity of traditional forestry species. Identification of desired traits in several species like Populus deltoides needs attention for production of highly productive but floss free male clones to control Poplar floss menace and unnecessary sacrifice of trees due to legislative compulsions.

Faculty Mandate

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Organizational Structure

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Achievements click here...