Foundation

From the forester school to the higher technical school called forestry training center

In 1969 future orientated politicians decided to coordinate a professional forestry-training course. Nine Cantons, and later in the 1970's Waadt and the new Canton of Jura – founded the Foundation Intercantonal Foresters School in Lyss (Canton Bern). The school was built near the old "Aare" in Lyss and was the first forestry school in Switzerland.

The founding director was the young forestry engineer and regional head forester Frédéric de Pourtalès who ran the school until he retired in early 2003.

In 1996, the school was given recognition as a Higher Technical School by Federal Councillor Ruth Dreifuss. The duration of study was extended to two years. This and other reasons, such as nature conservation, made a move to a new location and, hence, a new building necessary.

With the new building at Hardernstrasse 20 in Lyss, the largest timber construction at the time in Switzerland was realized. The architecturally daring, three-story wood build on Hardernstrasse in Lyss was built in 1996 using exclusively Swiss lumber (2000m3) and is the largest wooden building in Switzerland.

In the meantime, we have trained over 1000 foresters, in both German and French, and have organized countless continuing education courses. In addition to that, we offered at our institution Lumberjack Foreman and Ranger education programs.

Through the years the Forestry School changed and developed and was renamed the Forestry Training Center to take its new roles into consideration. Together with the coordination and documentation center for forestry education (CODOC) as well as with the specialist departments for Silviculture and Forestry Engineering (competence center for silviculture and forestry engineering) we take part in tasks of knowledge transfer.

Today the Forestry Training Center has become a meeting place, not only for forestry professions. In the last years, we have hosted many events and seminars with great charisma and success. Our best capital, though, is our employees. A carefully selected team comprised of forestry professionals (foresters and forest engineers) and dedicated employees from other professions make sure that we complete our tasks in both forestry training and the other services we offer.