Environment

If you are interested in the environment, programs of the College of Forestry and Conservation might be right for you. There are BS, MS, MEM and PhD degree possibilities in many environmental fields. Undergraduate curricula in Wildlife Biology emphasize wildlife and fish and their habitat, and topics such as endangered species and conservation biology. Students in Resource Conservation develop an environmental curriculum that specifically fits their intellectual goals. Recreation Management students emphasize either management of wildland recreation or tourism. The Forestry curriculum prepares graduates to sustain forests and grasslands through management activities.

Graduate opportunities cover the same fields and more specializations such as remote sensing and spatial analysis, environmental policy and economics, environmental sociology, protected area management, watershed management, insects and disease, and fire ecology and management, with an Ecosystem Management masters as an added attraction.

Students and faculty of the College are actively engaged in environmental research and outreach activities. We work on issues of endangered species, environmental restoration, analysis of environmental policies, community collaboration, wilderness management, and many other issues. Since many environmental organizations and government agencies have offices in Missoula, our students and faculty are engaged in the most pressing environmental problems of the Rocky Mountain Region. UM is the Host for the Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, a federal-university partnership, and the College hosts the Numerical Terradynamics Simulation Group which is heavily engaged in climate change and other global research. Other programs of the Montana Forest and Conservation Experiment Station also are engaged in environmental research.