Reduced Impact Logging and Its Effect on Forest Harvesting Operation

Forest harvesting is one of the most important objectives of forest management, in which it will cause damages to the residual stand, using any of the current methods, but the improved harvesting methods might reduce these effects. One of these methods is application of the directional felling. It was tried to investigate effect of directional felling on number of damaged trees at both felling and winching processes, as well as on felling and winching times. Observation and measuring was made in Neka-Choob Company’s forests. Overall, 84 trees were selected from the total marked trees, from which 42 trees were painted before the felling operation to specify the cutting and the felling direction on them by the project supervisor support. The time required for cutting and winching operations and number of the damaged trees at both operations were recorded. Results showed that the average net time required for the cutting operation at directed trees was 2.95 minutes per tree whereas it was 4.04 minute per tree for undirected trees. Furthermore, the number of the damaged trees with diameter greater than 10 cm at the undirected felling was more than the directed felling method (100 vs. 25 trees). In addition, winching time at undirected trees was more than two times in comparison to directed trees and more residual trees were damaged at undirected felling method at winching process (50 vs. 14 trees)