Rotorua Boys' High School students explore forestry careers

Richard Stringfellow demonstrates the harvesting simulator with RBHS students. Photo / Supplied

Rotorua Boys' High School and Toi Ohomai have joined forces to encourage students to pursue careers in forestry.

Forestry is a popular subject for Years 12 and 13 students at the high school and it's taught by assistant principal Roy Roe.

Roe has worked in the forest industry, and has good contacts both with some of the local forest management companies and with Toi Ohomai.

The students regularly visit Toi Ohomai as Roe works closely with tutor Richard Stringfellow.

"Visits to Toi Ohomai, and field trips to see operations, are important in the learning and assessment of the Unit Standards we cover. They are the part of the course the students enjoy the most, and get the most out of," Roe said.

"Toi Ohomai tutors have always been most generous in providing expertise, encouragement and professional development."

The visits to Toi Ohomai allow hands-on training with grapple and harvesting simulators.

"We are fortunate to have support from local forest management companies and farm woodlot contractors," Roe said.

Richard Stringfellow watches a RBHS student fell and process a tree on the simulator. Photo / Supplied

"Our field trips to view various operations put a burden on the harvesting crews we visit, and we are very grateful to them for taking the time and allowing us on to their work sites."

There are a number of former Rotorua Boys' High School students working in contracting and forest management around New Zealand.

Stringfellow said forestry was a good career path with lots of options and he wanted to encourage youth to enter it.

"We have an ageing workforce out there ... we need to get some new blood in there."

"There are so many avenues out there. People think it's working in the elements swinging off a chainsaw but now there are so many opportunities."

He said there had been a lot of technological advancements in forestry and young people picked up the technology quickly.

"Anybody can do it as long as they've the right attitude."