I wouldn't write off all qualifications relating to becoming a Bushcraft Instructor. If you notice many instructors (including some that are very well respected) have qualifications like the ML Summer, Emergency Medical Technician & basic food hygiene. Having this training & experience is in IMHO essential if you intend to look after groups in the outdoors and have an appropriate Duty of Care.
Some of the tickets are quite hard work to get, for example to achieve a ML Summer you are looking at at least a years worth of regular hill walking in all conditions. Some of the Bushcraft qualifications run on a similar format where the course is taken part time so the students have time to consolidate the skills & gain experience.
Without some sort of CV of your prospective instructor (in which could include some appropriate qualifications) it's difficult to judge whether they have any real experience. From my work on MR I've quite often being involved in searches for missing people 'who were experienced' but were actually anything but. At least a qualification shows that the prospective instructor has received some formal training and assessment in the relevant skills.
Just to clerify, by "absurdity of bushcraft qualifications" I didn't have in mind things like first aid training, proper facilities, building permits etc. That is just part of what each school has to have in order to responsibly have people on the premises. I personally don't care at all if the bushcraft instructor has any first aid training. I am fine with there being a physician at the school who does not teach but takes care of medical emergencies.
I don't understand why we need a certifying body to determine who is qualified to teach buschraft. Why can't independent credentials stand on their own? Why can't someone circumnavigating Alaska on foot, or living in the Amazon jungle alone for three years, or anything of the sort stand on its own? Why do I need a group of self-appointed "experts" determining if this is "valid" bushcraft?
In my experience, most buschraft instructors are a big joke. Most are allegedly certified in some way (i.e. took a class in how to make a fire with a bow drill and made a lean to next to the parking lot over the weekend). They have no actual experience in the wilderness, and simply regurgitate the information and tricks seen on Ray Mears DVDs, and spend a lot of time trying to have "the right look". They then proceed to teach things that while popular on forums, and look outdoorsy, are of no use to the person actually making his way through the wilderness.
Disagree with my assessment? That's my point! there is no way we will agree on what should give someone a certification as a bushcraft instructor. What is "proper buschraft" to one person is a joke, or improper technique to another.
This whole bushcraft certification business seems to be a UK phenomenon. I see all these Level 1, Level 2, Level whatever certifications and classes, and when I read the descriptions, it blows my mind that someone can be considered an instructor after simply taking the class.
For me bushcraft is something that requires actual time on the ground, and by that I mean the actual wilderness, not on the campgrounds. I also think that we each need to do our research when selecting an instructor, and not rely on someone else with questionable experience to tell us who should be teaching us. On top of that, what each of us considers buchcraft is very different and as a result what would be a qualified instructor for one of us, would be inadequate for the other. For example, someone spending a year living in a hot tent in Sweden might be a very qualified instructor for how one person wants to practice bushcraft, and how they envision the activity, while for me, that person would be completely unqualified to teach the way in which I practice bushcraft.
I don't think there is a way around doing our research. For me someone being certified by someone else has as much value as someone being an expert because they are on TV. It means exactly nothing. Not only do I have zero faith in a buschraft certifying body, but I believe it will be harmful in that it will restrict innovation and serve to impose a dominant view on what "bushcraft" is, and what a bushcraft instructor should know and teach. That is for me to decide, not for some other bushcraft "expert".
