{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/forest-and-conservation-workers/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Forest and Conservation Workers",
    "soc_code": "45-4011",
    "category": "Agriculture",
    "us_employment": 6050,
    "median_annual_wage": 43680
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 50,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 16,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 4,
    "trust_premium": 5,
    "judgment_accountability": 6
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Hand-planting bare-root seedlings at correct depth and spacing on 30-degree slopes, felling and limbing with a chainsaw, and swinging a Pulaski to cut trail tread are tasks no machine performs at crew-labor cost, which is why this sits at 16 rather than 20 — the plot measurements, tally sheets, and stand summaries that once justified a crew member's afternoon are already being pulled from drone and LiDAR passes.",
    "embodiment": "You work on unimproved ground in whatever weather the season delivers, carrying a planting bag, backpack sprayer, or saw through slash and blowdown, and no part of the day happens indoors — the only thing keeping this off 20 is that some units are pre-marked plantation rows rather than pure wildland.",
    "liability_shield": "Nothing you do requires a state licence; the herbicide applications are made under a supervisor's or contractor's certification, the burn plan is signed by a qualified burn boss, and your chainsaw and first-aid cards are employer-required training rather than a credential the law makes personally answerable — hence 4, not zero, since those cards do gate who gets on the crew.",
    "trust_premium": "Work is dispatched by contract and acres completed, not by anyone requesting you specifically; the 5 reflects the fact that crew bosses and district foresters do rehire known planters and sawyers by name, but the landowner never learns who put their trees in.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Planting prescriptions, spacing, tank mixes, and unit boundaries arrive already specified by a forester or contract spec, so your discretion is confined to reading terrain, picking microsites, and calling a hazard tree or a shutdown for wind — real calls, but bounded ones, which is why 6 rather than 10."
  },
  "rationale": "Planting seedlings on uneven slopes, clearing brush with chainsaws and hand tools, building and repairing trails, and spraying herbicide in dense terrain are jobs no language model touches and no current robot handles at cost. What AI does erode is the thin desk layer — plot data entry, stand inventory summaries, spraying and burn-day recordkeeping, and the mapping/prioritization work now increasingly done from drone and satellite imagery. Exposure here comes less from AI than from the occupation's low licensure, low wage, and seasonal-contract structure, which leaves no bargaining shield if crew sizes shrink.",
  "outlook": "The field work stays human through the 2030s and wildfire-fuels funding likely expands it, but the planning and inventory side shrinks and the pay ceiling stays low without a fire, faller, or applicator credential.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Crew work concentrating in roles where a named, personally certified individual must sign: state-certified commercial pesticide applicator credentials under FIFRA/40 CFR 171 (already required for herbicide application, but often held by one supervisor per crew — a state rule requiring certified-applicator status per person handling restricted-use product, not per crew, would raise this), plus state Certified Prescribed Burn Manager status (Florida F.S. 590.125, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas) where the certified burner signs the burn plan and carries the gross-negligence liability standard.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Growth of the prescribed-fire and fuels-reduction share of the work, where the burn boss / crew lead owns documented go/no-go calls against a written prescription (weather, fuel moisture, smoke-sensitive receptors) and the RX-level NWCG qualification travels with the person. Escaped-fire litigation and post-2020 state smoke-management rules make that call individually attributable in a way that seedling planting is not.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Carbon and biodiversity credit registries (Verra VM0047, ACR, Climate Action Reserve) requiring physical ground-plot measurement by a qualified field crew rather than remote-sensing-only estimation, after buyer-side backlash over satellite-derived overcrediting. That converts field measurement into a paid-for human verification step rather than a cost to be optimized away.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift within a genuinely two-tier job: if drone/satellite pipelines absorb the mapping, plot summary and burn-day recordkeeping tier, the residual role is the sawyer/burner/applicator tier that no current machine performs at cost on slope and in dense fuels. This raises the score of the job that remains without raising the number of jobs.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with all of these, headcount is set by agency and contract budgets, not by AI capability — a high resistance score here can coexist with fewer crew slots. The certification routes also split the occupation: they lift certified burners and applicators well above the planting-and-brush tier, which has no visible route to a liability shield or trust premium at all."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 7080,
        "wage": 27650
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 7510,
        "wage": 27460
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 6760,
        "wage": 31770
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 6490,
        "wage": 30640
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 6300,
        "wage": 30550
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 6080,
        "wage": 32270
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 5750,
        "wage": 33940
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 5630,
        "wage": 43680
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 6050,
        "wage": 43680
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -14.5,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}