New Harvesting Innovations to Improve Health and Safety

Forestry is, and will always be, a great place to work. Despite many positive changes, most countries practicing commercial forestry still have unacceptably high incident and accident rates associated with forestry work. This presentation will highlight both machinery innovation, as well as innovative practices that are improving the health and safety of the workforce. Opportunities to mechanise have been extensively realised on flat to rolling terrain. Mechanisation has also lead to greater levels of automation, with the machines being a platform for technology such as on-board computers and geo-referencing systems. However, harvesting on steep terrain still requires higher levels of manual, or motor manual input. Cable yarding extraction requires motor-manual felling of the trees, and choker-setters are required to attach the rigging to the felled trees. These two work activities account for the majority of fatalities. A number of opportunities are being developed to increase the level of mechanisation on steep terrain. Italy has led the way in design and implementation of remote controlled yarders, but other countries taking a lead in developing cable assist harvesters and extraction machines. In terms of silviculture, while ‘near to nature’ forestry practices are becoming ever more popular in Europe, they are not without implication if the resource is to be used commercially. Adding silvicultural complexity increases both cost and safety risk for the harvesting crews. A recent study showed that relative to other Alpine countries, Italy had high harvesting costs and most of that can be attributable to factors such as very small extraction volumes per harvest area. Modern ergonomic and safety rules state that everyone is responsible for safety. To date, harvesting crews are expected to manage safety within a defined forestry task (‘harvest prescription’). Some of these risks can be mitigated by new mechanised or even robotic, harvest systems. However, constructively working together with the silvicultural specialist should ensure that harvesting practices not only remain safe, but also economically viable