Began with the first batch of National Forest Tourism Major in 1995, School of Geography and Ecotourism (SGE), Southwest Forestry University (SWFU) has been gone through a historic evolution from department of ecotourism, faculty of ecotourism and faculty of geography heretofore and reunited in April, 2019 for purposes of enforcing overall disciplinary strength, enhancing cross-disciplinary researches and manifesting expertise and advantages.

There are department of geography, department of human-geography, department of information technique and tourism management and one educational research experimental center set up in SGE.SGE is hitherto authorized to grant Academic Master’s Degree for one First-level Disciplines (Geography) and six for Second-level Disciplines in Physical Geography, Human Geography, Ecotourism, Tourism Management, Virtual Environmental Geography and Tourism Landscape Architecture (both full-time and non-full-time), amongst tourism management is Key Discipline of National Forestry and Grassland Administration. SGE is also offering six undergraduate programs namely Tourism Management, Information Management and Information System, Hotel Management, Geography Science, Physical Geography and Resource Management and Human Geography and Urban and Rural Planning. There are about 1300 undergraduates and 150 postgraduates at school.

Education Research and Experiment Center set up facilities and labs such as Earth Evolution Lab, Earth Surface Processes Lab, Geomorphologic Lab, multimedia classroom, Tourism Integrating Practice room, Tea Art Room, Body Center and Library etc. with around 500 sets of equipments worth more than 8 million Yuan, and there are 3000 Chinese and foreign language books in collection. SGE takes talent training as core ideology to enhance capabilities of students, and sets up practice bases in Stone Forest World Heritage, Pu Tacuo National Park, Gui Shan Mount. Naitonal Forest Park and Jiao Zishan Mount. National Nature Reserve.

Considering disciplinary frontier and need of the country, SGE has formed certain advantages and expertise in academic researches such as Biogeography, Rural Geography, Environmental Education, Forest Recuperation, National Park, Forest Disaster Monitoring and Warning, Ecotourism, and Protected Area and Planning. There are research teams and platforms in provincial level such as Yunnan Provincial Eco-civilization Construction Engineering Research Center, Yunnan Provincial Forest Disasters Monitoring and Warning Technique Innovation Research team, Yunnan Ecotourism Localization and Innovation Research team, Yunnan Universities Forest Eco-disasters Monitoring and Warning Engineering Research Center, Yunnan Provincial Key Lab for Forest Recuperation, Institute for National Park Development and Research base for Yunnan Provincial Outdoor Sport Tourism established and provided an excellent support for researches and development of SGE. Tiles such as “Advanced Collectives for National Forestry Techniques”, “Outstanding Contribution Award of National Forestry Industry” and “Outstanding Contribution Award of National Ecological Construction” were conferred during the development of SGE.

Teachers are young, studious, innovative and energetic. Among 48 teachers of SGE, there are 9 professors, 10 associate professors, 4Ph. D. supervisors, 21master supervisors, 22doctors(2 of them a doctor candidates), besides, there are 10 guest professors, which form a good educational background structure and talent echelons. In recent years, more than 500 International Cooperation Projects, National Science and Technology Research Projects, National Natural Science Foundation Projects, Yunnan Provincial Natural Science Foundation Projects and local government entrusted projects were hosted by SGE teachers.

Past to the present, SGE has build communications with Hong Kong China Exploration Association, EU, Green Culture Society, GEF, Columbia University, Cornell University, University of Wisconsin, Sydney University of Technology, Chiba University, University of Edinburgh, Forest Commission UK, University of Western Australia, Griffith University, Sunchon National University, University of Sun Yat-sen, Peking University, Southeast University, Beijing Forestry University, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Jinwen University of Science and Technology and colleges and universities in Yunnan Province. Intimate business contact among Yunnan Tourism Administrations, Forestry Administrations and tourism enterprises are also established which formed better platforms for international and domestic cooperation.

SGE teachers and students coherently adhere to the university ethos of “Honesty, Simplicity and Generosity” and carry out the school motto of “Nurture Trees and Talents; Pursue Truth and Excellence”. By carrying on the rich legacy and fine tradition one generation after another, they will continue to put greatest effort on basic research and broaden services and applications, and fully implement talent training, scientific research, social services, international exchanges and cultural innovation to build SGE an educational and academic institute that distinguishes provincially and domestically, and to build SGE a sophisticated talent training and academic research center for Geography and Ecotourism that bestow South Asia and Southeast Asia.