Glossary
Forester Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential forester terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key forester vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in forester training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Basal area
- Tree cross-section per acre.
- BMPs
- Best management practices.
- Board feet
- Lumber volume unit.
- Clearcut
- Harvesting all trees.
- DBH
- Diameter at breast height.
- Fuel load
- Burnable material.
- Prescribed burn
- Planned fire.
- Reforestation
- Replanting.
- Regeneration
- New trees growing.
- Riparian zone
- Area along streams.
- Silviculture
- Growing and tending forests.
- Stand
- Uniform group of trees.
- Thinning
- Removing some trees.
- Timber cruise
- Estimating timber volume.
- Timber sale
- Selling trees for harvest.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Forester practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Forester training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.