Hi

I'm a British guy, living in Finland. Been working in forestry and wood
processing in Russia, Scandinavia, South America and Canada. (not much
forest for me to play with back home ;-)

I noticed a comment about waste in cutting. I can only comment that on the
Canadian clearfell sites I visited, the amount of waste was stunning. It
seemed to be common to just blindly cut 16 foot and 8 foot poles, regardless
to market. The Foresters even admitted that they cut even when there was no
market, and there were huge piles of rotting product left on site. I find
this absolutely incredible.

There is a gradual move to CTL harvesting (mainly for environmental reasons)
there, and I understand that it is not as 'productive' as cut and skid in
terms of sheer volume. I do believe however that when implemented correctly,
it can significantly increase the best utilization of product.

I guess that most people are realising that North America and Russia do not
hold 'endless' swathes of productive forest, so it should be high time that
everyone takes a long hard look at the effectiveness of utilisation of
product.

I am not saying that the Scandinavian system is perfect, or that it suits
every operation, but I must say that I think the ethos of the system
(maximising yield) should be something professionals in North America (and
of course elsewhere) should seriously consider.

Cheers
Gavin