India's Top Forester Addresses Group Studying at ESF, SU

Forest service leaders study in joint program
4/20/2012

Dr. P.J. Dilip Kumar, the top official in the Indian Forest Service (IFS), joined a group of high-level administrators from the service who are visiting Syracuse this month as part of an educational program that combines forestry and public policy skills.

The visitors are executive leaders within the IFS who come to the United States through an arrangement between the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB), and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. In Syracuse, they study policy in the Executive Training Program at Maxwell and forestry at ESF.

Kumar spoke Monday at the Maxwell School, drawing an audience of administrators, faculty members and students from both ESF and SU. His topic was "India's National Forest Policy and Emerging Issues in the Environmental Sector." Part of his presentation touched on the way Gifford Pinchot, who was the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, influenced the management of forests in India.

Kumar has been director general of forests in India since 2009. His visit was a highlight of this spring's training program, which focuses on developing senior IFS officers' understanding of the changing scene for environmental policymaking and implementation internationally and domestically, with a focus on developing leadership and management skills to help them implement these changes.

Maxwell and ESF have worked with groups from the IFS in the past few years; two more groups are expected to visit Syracuse this year, said Dr. David Newman, chair of ESF's Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Management.

The Indian forestry leaders attend classroom lectures at the two universities and visit ESF's Ranger School in Wanakena. They also travel to the Catskills to see a managed forest and review the working arrangement of the New York City watershed and to Washington, D.C., for meetings with their counterparts in the U.S. Forest Service.