Council Approves Forest Engineering Experience Guideline
On June 13, 2008, APEGBC’s Council approved the Guideline for Satisfactory Engineering Experience in the Forest Engineering Discipline: Required Competencies for Application of Theory. The requirements outlined in the guideline will be mandatory for applications received on or after September 1, 2008.
This is the sixth in a series of discipline-specific guidelines that interpret APEGBC’s satisfactory engineering experience requirements for applicants for registration as professional engineers. These documents provide guidance to applicants, employers and to APEGBC reviewers as to the specific elements of experience that satisfy the experience requirements for registration in a particular engineering discipline. The clear expectations articulated will not only support both engineers-in-training in self-assessing their readiness for registration, but will also provide a support mechanism to EITs and their employers towards ensuring that they receive the appropriate training, supervision and exposure to the elements of experience required for registration as a professional engineer.
APEGBC’s Forest Engineering Task Force, comprising senior practitioners in forest engineering, researched and developed the guideline, and conducted a preliminary and extensive final stakeholder review of stakeholders that included professional forest engineers, members of the Division of Engineers and Geoscientsts in the Forest Sector (DEGIFS), APEGBC registration reviewers, representatives of Canadian universities that offer forest engineering and forestry programs and industry stakeholders including licensee representatives and the Ministry of Forests and Range. Most stakeholder comments were complimentary of the Guideline and provided constructive suggestions, many of which were incorporated in the version approved by Council.
The preamble to the recently-approved guideline states:
Forest engineering identifies and presents solutions to issues resulting from the development of forest resources. It includes planning, designing, evaluating, implementing and management of the practice of professional engineering and the engineering aspects of forest operations with a mandate to protect the public, worker safety, the environment, and promote sustainable forest management.
A Forest Engineer is a professional engineer who applies engineering principles (science, technology, engineering methods and planning) to facilitate development in the forest environment in the following areas of practice:
- access planning and resource roads
- forest road bridges, culverts and other engineered structures
- harvesting systems
- transportation systems
- machine and woodflow process
- wood product development.
The guideline then proceeds to outline the requirements for Application of Theory for each area of practice. It requires that an applicant have a working knowledge1 of three areas of practice to fulfill the experience requirements for registration; however it also provides flexibility for case-by case consideration of equivalent working knowledge for applicants who cannot meet the first requirement.
The new guideline will be made available on APEGBC’s website at www.apeg.bc.ca/reg/pengappdocsrequired.html, together with discipline-specific guidelines for environmental, integrated, software, marine and naval architectural engineering experience, as well as the Satisfactory Engineering Experience Guideline that provides the framework for all disciplines of engineering.
1Working Knowledge is defined as achievement of all competencies in the area of practice.