Customised training

ProForest offers training on a wide range of topics related to natural resource management, all of which can be customised to meet the needs of individual clients. Training can range from a half day introduction to a topic for senior management to an in-depth course over several days.

We provide bespoke training courses for a very wide range of clients, including national and international NGOs, multinational high-street businesses, small and large producers throughout the world, national governments, international banks, multinationals and universities. 

 The strong experience of our trainers ensure our courses are grounded in practice

The strong experience of our trainers in natural resource management, conservation, supply chain management, audits and certification ensures that our courses are grounded in practice. We have in-house capacity to deliver many of our courses in Spanish, French and Chinese, and are also happy to adapt our training sessions to work in other languages using simultaneous translation. We support hands-on training and learning-through-doing, and we use group work in all our training courses to enhance learning.

Training programmes are available on the following topics which can be tailored to meet specific needs:

• The High Conservation Value concept (HCV)
• Supply Chain Management
• Sustainable Forest Management
• The Principles of Natural Resource Certification schemes, Criteria development and Verification Mechanisms
• Natural Resource Certification systems
• Forest management certification systems and Chain of Custody certification

Annual UK-based Summer Training Programme

Auditing training, summer training course 2004

We offer an annual summer training programme held in July each year and open to individuals or companies, offering one to three day courses on a range of current natural resource management topics.

Our 2010 summer training programme offers 3 courses:

• a course on responsible forestry and timber trade
• an introductory course to High Conservation Values
  
• a course focussing on forests and climate change
  

This training programme, now in its ninth year is held in Oxford University facilities in Oxford, UK, and provides an opportunity to receive high quality training from practitioners who are currently involved in technical projects in these fields:  training is therefore up-to-date and grounded in practical experience.  Previous participants have included staff from private natural resource management companies, the IFC and World Bank, WWF, academics, forest certification schemes and NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Stepwise Support Programme for Palm Oil

The Stepwise Support Programme (SSP) is one of the first global support programmes specifically designed for the oil palm sector. It is a programme jointly run by ProForest and our Malaysian-based partners Wild Asia, with whom we share the common goal of promoting sustainability in agriculture. Jointly we have experience throughout the entire sustainable palm oil supply chain. The pogramme aims to provide support and guidance enabling producers to make progress towards achieving RSPO certification, and giving buyers, processors and investors confidence in planning, implementing and communicating their approach to the RSPO standards.