The University of Maine’s Forestry program provides a very broad education. Foresters are employed in a wide range of positions, related to topics such as forest resources management, conservation, and land stewardship.

Federal agencies (such as the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service) manage 20 percent of the timberland in the United States. State natural resources agencies, which manage seven percent, hire foresters to manage state forest lands and to provide advice to owners of small woodland properties. Forest industries, which own 13 percent of the timberland, are major employers (especially in Maine, which ranks third in the U.S. in industrial forest acreage than any other state). An increasing number of forestry graduates become independent consultants, serving mostly nonindustrial private forestland owners, such as the thousands who own about half of Maine’s timberland. Fifty-eight percent of all of the timberland in the U.S. is in such ownership. As the people of Maine, the United States, and the world increase their demands on forests, the need for foresters will continue.