Sutrofor, European Erasmus Mundus Course in Sustainable Tropical Forestry

Course objectives: (i) Familiarising with theoretical and methodological approaches to interdisciplinary studies of natural resource management and rural livelihood in developing countries. (ii) Enabling students to apply their own disciplinary skills in interdisciplinary problem-based group work. (iii) Training in field based investigation of concrete topics/problems. (iv) Ensuring students’ exposure to methods from both natural and social science. (v) Providing students the experience of working with devel-oping country counterparts.

Course content: The course is jointly organised by KVL, University of Copenhagen and Roskilde University Centre, and attracts students from a range of natural and social science disciplines. Most land use and natural resource management issues in developing countries are best approached interdisci-plinary. Hence, the central theme in the course is learning and using interdisciplinary methods and theoretical approaches through problem-oriented field work in a developing country in collabora-tion with local counterparts. While working with students from other disciplines, students should apply their own disciplinary skills in order to address the identified topics/questions within land use, rural development and natural resource management. Close co-operation with local students will ensure exposure to working in an inter-cultural environment. The course includes training in analysing and developing project proposals; planning and conducting field work; selection and ap-plication of data collection methods (e.g. questionnaire design, interview techniques, bio-physical sampling methods, PRA techniques); data recording and processing; and writing field reports. This will allow students to participate effectively in interdisciplinary assignments in developing countries, and serve as a basis for understanding strengths and weaknesses of each student’s own discipline, including comparative advantages of academic disciplines relevant to rural liveli-hoods and natural resource management in developing countries. Interdisciplinary field courses have been carried out in collaboration with university counterparts in Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa since 1998.

Teaching and learning methods: The course consists of: -2-day introductory internship. -Lectures and practicals on natural and social scientific methods and tools used in fieldwork. Theoretical/contextual and region-specific lectures. Theoretical lectures are followed by exercises demonstrating the practical applicability of the central concepts in fieldwork. -Student presentations of key texts. -Group work: Each student will participate in a supervised group. Each group will prepare a synopsis before the field trip, conduct fieldwork, prepare and submit a course report. -2-3 weeks field work in a devel-oping country.

Examination: Written and oral. All aids allowed. The examination consists of three parts: (i) Group synopsis delivered before fieldwork, max. 2500 words, (ii) group field report, max.10,000 words, (iii) group oral defence of report. Weight: Synopsis for fieldwork (20%); Field report (60%) and Oral defence of report (20%). External examiner.

Competences acquired: Ability to apply principles and expand their application based on evaluation of the con-crete case and locally specific knowledge/conditions. Make judgement of the usefulness of meth-ods and the reliability of collected data as well as the significance of obtained results. Ability to discuss and compare data obtained by various methods in interdisciplinary fieldwork. Can make judgement of own interpretation on complex topics and relevance for the investigated communities.

Course homepage: www.sluse.dk/