Did you know that in Czech Republic, there are currently six Marteloscopes available for training of integrative approaches to forest management? However, recent events have not been favourable for the training activities with Marteloscopes. Trainings were first limited by the bark beetle calamity, as the forest managers and workers were very busy battling against the small, devastating beetle. Although trainings are still ongoing, their numbers have decreased. So, as a result, we began looking for a different potential ways to utilise our Marteloscopes and found that cooperating with secondary forest schools could be a promising and new approach. Our last two Marteloscopes were established exactly with this aim. The first was set up close by the Secondary Forestry School in Žlutice and the second in the vicinity of Czech Forestry Academy in Trutnov.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions brought other difficulties. The promising cooperation with schools slowed down, as the students could not attend their school lessons in-person and teachers had to adapt to teaching online for the majority of the year. We were glad to at least to be able to organise the training for the teachers and staff of the school forest enterprises. The training successfully took place in Žlutice, but unfortunately, the meeting in Trutnov was cancelled one day before due to newly imposed quarantine measures.
We aim to continue the cooperation given the very promising first reviews from the teachers. It was clear that they appreciated the potential manifold use of the Marteloscopes, including for teaching Forest Ecology, but other subjects such as Forest Harvesting, Forest Economy, and Dendrometry. All trees in the Marteloscopes have been measured (DBH, height, volume, economic and ecologic value) and the tablet application is available for free, so there is a very wide range of utilisation possibilities for interested students.
We all hope to be able to continue the activities on Marteloscopes later this year. Our goal is to ensure that the forestry schools and Marteloscopes benefit from one another and that the training on Marteloscope will become a fixed part of the students’ curriculum. Since all Marteloscopes are open and freely accessible, they can also be potentially used by other interested people for educational and collaborative purposes.
This text was prepared by Lenka Lehnerová, Czech Forest Management Institute, and Tomáš Krejzar, Director of the Department of Forest Policy and Economics at the Czech Ministry of Agriculture.
Featured image: training in Žlutice, photo by Czech Forest Management Institute