ASBRF News Brief:

14 OCT 2024

New Continuing Forestry Education Rules

New ASBRF continuing forestry education (CFE) rules go into effect today. The new rules are much simpler to understand and cover most of the prior rule content with a consolidation of CFE Categories.

In March of 2023, Governor Kay Ivey issued an executive order for  all state agencies (including ASBRF) to in essence reduce regulatory burdens by reducing certain rules. ASBRF created an inventory of its rules and evaluated reduction opportunities. Continuing Forestry Education rules were determined to provide the primary opportunity for reductions. Some of the content was no longer applicable particularly in the age of on-line courses and webinars.

The 1992 CFE rules had 6 categories of continuing forestry education. The Board reduced CFE categories through consolidation into three categories. The new rules effective today simplify Category 1 to contain all continuing education that has the required minimum of 5 annual hours (or the maximum of all 10 required hours). Category 2 and Category 3 contain continuing education for which a maximum of five annual hours can be used to meet the annual 10 hours required.

You can visit the Continuing Education Page of the ASBRF website to view the new rules.