Digby Guy: Damage 'done by modern harvesting' worries forester

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SITTING here in my hot tub, I look onto the forest on the opposite side of the glen. It’s one of the most pleasant and interesting conifer forests in the country, having an unusually large range of both species and ages, plus an interesting arboretum. Some trees date back to the reign of Queen Victoria. Makes one proud to be a forester.

Unfortunately, my view has recently been spoiled somewhat by the clearfelling of significant areas of larch on the back of a phytophthora outbreak. I can also see areas of dead standing larch that have gone way beyond their ‘cut-by’ date, which begs the question as to whether the so-called sanitary felling has been effective. But that’s another story – I’ll get back to my point.

There are two particular clearfell sites that get my attention. They are on the face of the hill of which I have a sort of bird’s-eye view. Not as good as the view from a drone, but still useful. The one on my left was harvested with a cable crane and the site looks undamaged and ready for restocking, whereas the one on my right was harvested with a processor and extracted by forwarder. It’s badly scarred and I can only speculate on the level of ground damage. Going by knowledge of similar sites harvested in this area in the same way, I would put it in the unacceptable category.

This level of damage is not uncommon – in fact, it’s almost par for the course these days, especially here in the West, with steep ground and high rainfall. Does it matter? I suggest it does and for a number of reasons. Chief forester John Jackson would be spinning in his grave if he could see his forest now.

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Let’s start with the site itself. The tracks carved across the face of the hill with excavators to facilitate the use of large forwarders damage the structure and stability of the soil. They interrupt the movement of water through and over the soil. Is this a good or bad thing? Site management doesn’t appear to be regulated or controlled – certainly not effectively. We need approval for new roads whereby definition drainage and run-off are taken into consideration, whereas these forwarder tracks with cut benches don’t seem to have to meet the same criteria. Why not, I ask myself, given they are invariably much steeper and less well formed?

Then I think about restocking. Never liked planting myself. I was always too slow and couldn’t make any money, but of course it’s one of the most important things we do, laying down the foundations for the next rotation. The site I’m looking at on my right is unplantable as it stands, certainly in terms of getting 2,500 trees per ha at regular spacing. It will likely need another throw of the excavator, clearing streams and drains, putting out mounds to plant on, etc. The reinstatement of tracks might make things look better, but the damage has been done.

The last of my three points is carbon, or rather the release of it. As an industry, we rightly bang on about how trees sequester and store carbon, but we are inclined to disregard the issues around site damage and consequential carbon release. Presumably on the back of short-term economics. 

Still in my hot tub, I ask myself: ‘Where did it all go wrong?’

When I was contract harvesting the aftermath of the ’68 windblow in Glenbranter Forest, there were no harvesters or forwarders in sight. That said, I was aware of some work being done with what I think was called a Camcar processor on trial in the Carron Valley, but that was about it. The timber here in the West was all harvested by skyline/high lead or the odd horse. The trees were processed by men with chainsaws. I’m not for one minute suggesting we go back to the ‘good old days’, but I am pondering on how we went from harvesting with no ground damage and restocking without the need for extensive (not to say expensive) pre-planting ground preparation to the situation I’m looking at across the glen.

Times have changed since the late ’60s and our industry has quite rightly looked at the risks associated with felling by hand with chainsaws, especially where windblow is involved and on steep slopes. What to do? There are options if you look hard enough.

A single pass from one LGP machine with a felling head does little or no site damage. There are even machines that will operate on the steepest of slopes. It can be done.

Extraction by cable crane is a tried-and-tested method and again does little or no damage to the site. There are few if any sites/situations a cable crane can’t handle. Take Calum Duffy’s well-reported operations on the slopes above the A82 by way of example.

So, what’s the problem?

The problem is blinkered short-term economics. The harvester/forwarder combination is cheaper, quicker and easier. The long-term economics of site damage and carbon release seem to be irrelevant and ‘not our problem’.

I can of course see that sitting in an air-conditioned cab listening to Radio 1 (or maybe Smooth Radio, given the average age of machine operators) is more pleasant than being out in all weathers attaching wire ropes to bits of wood, but that hardly justifies the resultant effect I’m looking at across the glen, and in the West generally.

The cable-crane operation is best suited to small, self-contained teams, be they employees or contractors. The timber-harvesting world has been taken over by the big boys to the demise of the smaller guys who were predominant in the days when I worked a winch. Small, focused teams tend to take more responsibility. In those days, a big team was one that had a winch and did the cutting, and quite often the cutters were separate to the winchmen – but it worked. Today, with harvesters costing half a million, small guys can’t get into the harvesting game and, worse than that, the competition between the big guys and the pressure from the end user contrives to keep harvesting rates at unrealistic lows, making it unattractive for new entrants. There’s little or no money for training or research and we are faced with a downward spiral of corner cutting to make ends meet.

We need a root-and-branch review. A complete rethink. Someone needs to take control.

We (well, some of us, anyway) know what’s wrong. I had an off-the-record meeting with a guy from SEPA a couple of years back and showed him some examples of sites that should concern us all. He was surprised at what he saw, but was of the opinion that it was all covered in water guidelines, etc. I tried to point out that what’s written in a carefully prepared bulletin is of no use if it’s not implemented. I’m the last one to invite intervention from desk-driving bureaucrats, but something needs to be done and, in my opinion, it starts at the top with the forest owner.

Forest owners and/or their managers need to lay down the rules and set out in contracts what is and is not acceptable. I use the word ‘manager’ in the sense of it being someone who is representing their client’s best long-term interests, as opposed to the more likely situation where managers are often owned in whole or in part by the end user, with the resultant lack of clarity as to who they really represent. But that’s another story.

We need to research and develop working methods and equipment appropriate for today.

We need fit-for-purpose training. We need to make the business of harvesting attractive to enterprising new entrants, to self-driven contractors committed to providing the service forest owners should be looking for, and it needs to be profitable. Where are the young guys? 

Forest owners need to take control and bear responsibility. The short-term returns may go down, but forestry is a long-term industry. Where did it all go wrong?