Forestry Merit Badge

The field notebook is a real object, and two routes need it in your hand

Requirement 1 asks you to prepare a field notebook, make a collection, and identify 15 species of trees, shrubs or vines.

Requirement 2 then offers three routes, and they do not treat that notebook the same way:

Both 2(b) and 2(c) open with the same words: In the field notebook you prepared for requirement 1, describe... They also both ask you to photograph or sketch each example.

So the notebook has to exist and be with you before you go looking. Choosing 2(a) instead means requirement 2 has no dependency on requirement 1 at all.

2(b) additionally wants the location or origin of each example including elevation, aspect, slope, and the position on the slope. Those are four separate readings taken where you are standing, and they cannot be reconstructed from a photograph afterwards.

Requirement 5 is three appointments, and needs approval before any of them

The preamble does the work here, not the three parts:

With your parent or guardian's and counselor's approval, do ONE of the following.

Two approvals, before you go. Then:

None of these is a thing you can arrange on the day. 5(c) is the one with the extra catch: it asks you to take part in a fire prevention campaign, so there has to be one to take part in, at a time you can join it.

All three end in a written report, so the writing is the same whichever you choose. The difference is entirely in what you can get access to.

5(b) is seven questions, and you can only ask them once

If you choose the logging operation or mill visit, the report needs all seven of these:

1. The species and size of trees harvested or used
2. The origin of the forest or stand (planted or natural)
3. Its successional stage and future, and for a past operation, the regeneration occurring
4. Where the trees come from (land ownership) or where they go (which mill)
5. The products made from the trees
6. How those products are made and used
7. How waste material is or was disposed of or used Most of that has to come from the person showing you round. Read the list before the visit and take it with you. A Scout who tours a mill, goes home and then reads requirement 5(b) has to arrange the visit a second time.

Requirement 6 may have only one route open to you

6(b) needs a document that somebody else has already written about your specific camp, park or neighbourhood. Many places have never had one. If yours has not, 6(b) is closed to you and no amount of effort opens it.

Check whether the report exists before choosing. If it does, 6(b) is much the quicker route; if it does not, 6(a) is the only one, and it ends with handing your findings to an actual authority, which takes a little arranging of its own.

What this page is

The Forestry merit badge, drawn so the field notebook, the appointments and the report that may not exist are all visible before they are needed. It is not a copy of the requirements and it identifies no trees: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year.