Overview: Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) is recognised as one of the most important strategies for increasing the resilience of forests in the UK and Ireland. This course provides an overview of early-stage stand transformation, covering both theory and practice. There will be indoor and outdoor sessions. Practical sessions will take place in a productive conifer woodland and include exercises in tree appraisal, forest stand assessment and tree marking to meet specific stand management prescriptions. The course makes use of a specially-prepared training plot (known as a marteloscope) where all the trees are numbered and assessed in terms of a range of qualitative and quantitative attributes. This forms the basis of tree marker training exercises that provide the learner with detailed results and feedback on the selection of trees to retain and remove during a thinning intervention. Learning Objectives: - Forest site assessment - Tree classification and quality assessment - Habitat and biodiversity assessment - Stand inventory and prescription design - Low thinning strategy - Crown thinning strategy - Skills development in tree marking A certificate of completion is awarded by Silviculture Academy