TFT Michael Jourdain Scholarship

The TFT Michael Jourdain Scholarship Fund was established in 2000 to make it possible for foresters - and future forest policy makers - from the tropics to study the practice of sustainable forest management and then promote it in their home countries.

The Scholarship funds foresters to study at Masters level course or to take shorter, specialist courses. Jourdain Scholars learn the principles and practicalities of sustainable forest management and study its links with international timber markets and forest politics.

Previous Jourdain Scholars who studied at Oxford, Yale, The Smithsonian Institute and Freiburg university have also benefited through the contacts they made with other forestery specialists on their courses.

Michael Jourdain, after whom the fund is named, was a highly experienced forester with over 40 years' forestry employment worldwide, including many years in tropical Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Through much of that time Michael developed and implemented forest management plans that were focused on achieving timber production targets, at a time when this approach was widely seen as the most beneficial for the people and economies of timber rich developing countries. At the same time, Michael was a strong advocate of ensuring that the forestry operations under his control contributed to local community development. He was responsible for the building of many schools, hospitals and community centres in the tropical countries in which he worked.

He grew deeply concerned both about the rapid disappearance of natural forests, and about the minimal return for local communities and national economies being achieved from this forest clearance.

Michael became a strong advocate of the FSC process and he carried out crucial planning work on a number of TFT projects in Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia. He believed that sustainable forest management and FSC certification could only achieve their potential in the tropics with the active support of many more well informed local forest managers and policy makers.

Michael died in a motorcycle accident in September 2000. The Scholarship fund is named in his memory - a recognition of his practical contribution to promoting good forest management, and of his public championing of more and better trained young foresters in the tropics.

A successful candidate should:

  1. Be a graduate with a Bachelors or Masters degree in forestry(Practitioners with field level experience are favored);
  2. Be a citizen of: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, or the Republic of Congo;
  3. Have already been accepted on to an appropriate course (subject to funding); and
  4. Be seeking funding to enroll on a Masters level forestry course or short-term training course/workshop, focusing on practical aspects of forest management in tropical countries, and being offered by a department or training centre with recognized expertise.

Bachelor or Doctorate level study/research will not be funded

Application deadline

30th June 2007

The competion is now closed. Please check back in 2008. 


TFT Michael Jourdain Scholar Bruno Bokoto, of the Central African Republic, studied Biodiversity Monitoring and Assessement Technique at Conservation Research Center at Front Royal, Virginia (USA) lauched by Smithsonian Institute.