Gavin wrote:
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





Where was this? The amount of slash left behind when logging west coast
old growth forest is truly staggering, for many reasons. Waste is
reduced to such low levels in younger stands that it's debatable that
enough remains to replenish the duff.

Factors such as rising or falling stumpage, long distances to pulp
markets, high stand defect and even company/union policy all influence
the amount of slash left. At times I've even seen good timber long
butted because loggers were betting on a lucrative salvage deal
afterwards. An extreme case, but it happens.