Hasanuddin University (UNHAS), mainly through its Faculty of Forestry, organises and supports scientific events, lectures, inter-university visits, and field activities that promote the conservation and sustainable use of land, forests, and wild land. All of the events described below took place in 2025.

From 25 August to 7 September 2025, the Faculty of Forestry hosted the 2025 International Forestry Students’ Symposium, which brought together 85 forestry student delegates from 21 countries. Over 14 days, participants visited Jakarta, Bogor, Yogyakarta, Makassar, Maros, and Takalar to learn about Indonesia’s forestry sector and the conservation priorities of South Sulawesi, including the 44,000-hectare karst landscape of Maros, Pangkep, Barru, and Bone and the province’s coastal mangrove forests.

On 23 July 2025, the Faculty hosted the 4th Biennial Conference of Tropical Biodiversity (BCTB) under the theme “Mainstreaming Multidisciplinary Approaches to Biodiversity Studies for Sustainable Development”. Held in a hybrid format, in person at the UNHAS Institute for Research and Community Service and online, the conference was open to external participants and was attended by hundreds of academics, researchers, and stakeholders, with partner institutions from Russia (Tomsk Polytechnic University), Malaysia (Universiti Teknologi MARA), the Philippines (Mindanao State University–Maguindanao), and Indonesia (Universitas Sumatera Utara). At the opening, the Rector of UNHAS described tropical biodiversity as a global asset that must be managed sustainably. As part of the BCTB series, on 24 July 2025 Prof. Christoph Kleinn of Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, gave a guest lecture at the UNHAS Educational Forest at Bengo-Bengo, Maros, a Special Purpose Forest Area (Kawasan Hutan dengan Tujuan Khusus, KHDTK), on how forest inventories inform the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of forest resources. The lecture was attended by forestry students on field work practice and Faculty lecturers.

On 14 May 2025, the Faculty of Forestry held a public lecture by the Minister of Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia, Raja Juli Antoni, Ph.D. at the Prof. A. Amiruddin Auditorium on the Tamalanrea Campus. The Minister discussed the role of education and the strategic steps needed to resolve problems in the forestry sector, including tenure conflicts involving local and indigenous communities, proposed the use of digital technology in forest management, and stressed that forests are entrusted to future generations. At the lecture, the Rector of UNHAS described the Educational Forest as a centre for scientific research, environmental conservation, and sustainable forest development.

On 17 November 2025, the Forestry Engineering Study Programme held a guest lecture on the conservation of Sulawesi’s endemic plants by Prof. Wawan Sujarwo, a principal research scientist in ecology at the National Research and Innovation Agency (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, BRIN). The lecture explained why conserving plant biodiversity is an essential foundation for ecosystem sustainability.

From 2 to 5 November 2025, the Educational Forest hosted a benchmarking visit by the Special Purpose Forest Area of Universitas Brawijaya (UB Forest). The visiting team studied how UNHAS combines forest conservation with education-based ecotourism, its research plots for endemic flora and fauna, and its community-based social forestry partnerships built on non-timber forest products. Such exchanges between universities help develop shared standards for conservation, ecosystem management, and sustainable forestry research in Indonesia.

Degraded land is another focus. Through ASSAMATURU, a programme run with PT Semen Tonasa that placed 90 UNHAS students in the 114th wave of the Thematic Student Community Service Programme (Kuliah Kerja Nyata Tematik, KKN-T), students reviewed the company’s reclamation and post-mining plan for former mining land in Pangkep Regency on 6 August 2025. The company had revegetated nearly three hectares with thousands of angsana, bitti, tamate, and mahogany seedlings, but growth has been uneven because of poor soil fertility and grazing by livestock, so the students recommended stronger monitoring and maintenance. On 15 August 2025, they carried out vegetation mapping with a geographic information system together with the company’s environmental team. The 2021 reclamation area held the most trees (499, mainly tamate), followed by the 2020 area (317, mainly mahogany and tamate), while bamboo (Bambusa spp.) had the highest estimated carbon dioxide uptake, particularly in the 2023 area.

The Faculty of Forestry also runs the General Conservation Practicum (Praktik Umum Konservasi) for Forest Conservation students during the semester break. In 2025, it ran from 8 January to 12 February in the Educational Forest, where students applied sustainable forest management and conservation principles in the field and used the Faculty’s research building on site. The practicum is part of the management of the Educational Forest under Rector’s Regulation No. 41/UN4.1/2023 on Guidelines for the Management of the Educational Forest as a Special Purpose Forest Area, which remains in force.