Director Of United Nations Forum On Forests Visits 4-H Forestry Competition

REBEKAH HALL 

MONTICELLO, ARKANSAS

After a years-long hiatus, the Arkansas 4-H Forestry Competition returned to the University of Arkansas at Monticello this May, with an especially notable guest in attendance.

Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo, director of the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat, visited the UAM campus on May 19, the day of the competition. In addition to meeting with the university’s Executive Council and faculty, graduate and undergraduate students from the College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Biao also visited with 4-H members involved in the day’s competition during their lunch break.

Kyle Cunningham, extension associate professor of forestry for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said Biao’s visit to the campus for the forestry competition was an important opportunity for 4-H members.

“Dr. Juliette Biao was a tremendous guest to have here in Arkansas at our forestry contest because she is from West Africa and she’s actually the first female forester in West Africa,” Cunningham said. “She has a really big job working around the world on sustainable management of our forests, and that was what she focused on with the kids today. She has a broad, holistic view of what sustainable management is. She really interacted with the kids and got on a personal level with regard to what their ideas were about conservation and wood utilization.”

Michael Blazier, dean of the College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources, said Biao has a “long working relationship” with Jerome Ngundue, who works as a public health preparedness planner at the Arkansas Department of Health. Blazier said this relationship contributed to Biao’s visit to Arkansas.

“It was Dr. Ngundue who encouraged her to visit our campus to learn about forestry education, research and outreach we’re engaged in,” Blazier said.

Addressing the 4-H members, Biao emphasized the importance of education and sustainable practices.

“Why does the United Nations believe that education is critical?” Biao asked. “If we’re talking about climate change, there are natural causes for that, but the main cause is human. It’s easier to educate young people because they can learn, they can understand, they can even make adults change their behavior, as opposed to trying to educate adults. It’s like you have a piece of wood that is already dry, and if you want to bend it, it will break.”

Biao also asked questions of the group and shared her experiences as a forester.

“Who can tell me what sustainable development is?” Biao asked.

“Sustainable means to hold onto something for a while, and development means to grow something,” one 4-H member said. “So, it might mean to hold growth?”

“Sustainable means that you manage the resource in a way where you are using it properly in the present, but you’re also thinking about future generations,” Biao said. “If you want to develop the country, you need to develop the economy of the country. But you should not develop the economy at the expense of the environment. You should not develop the country by ignoring people and society. Any initiative that does not combine the economy, the environment and the society is not sustainable.”

Putting forestry skills to the test

Three senior teams, one junior team and a few individual competitors from Faulkner, Ouachita and White counties participated in the 4-H Forestry Competition. At the Arkansas Forest Resources Center and surrounding forest on the UAM campus, 4-H’ers identified and measured trees, tested their compass traversing skills and completed insect and disease identification.

“What we’re doing here is the basic principles of forestry,” Cunningham said. “It’s insect and disease identification; it’s tree identification, where we go out and identify 25 different tree species, which the kids have to know; then we do forest measurements, where they go in and do heights, diameters and tree volumes.”

Cunningham said students also complete a written forestry exam with 25 questions. This is the first time the 4-H Forestry Competition has been held since it was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Cunningham said he’s hoping to build the program back up by helping county agents learn the ropes.

“Ideally, teams are preparing for the contest year-round,” Cunningham said. “That’s one of the things that I want to do as we’re rekindling the contest, is get back out to the counties more and, as foresters at the state level, help the county agents get their teams more prepared.

“When you’re doing tree identification, leaf-on is usually better, so you need to practice that during the summer,” he said. “But you also need to know the bark, so you need to do that during the winter, and different insects are active at different times of the year. It really can be a year-long process.”

The White County senior team was the winning team of the 4-H Forestry Competition. Members Ellie Ferren, Jack Pruitt, Delaney White and Madison White will represent Arkansas at the National 4-H Forestry Invitational at Jackson’s Mill State 4-H Camp in Weston, West Virginia, in July. ∆