Timber harvesters & sustainability or better the lack of it

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Timber harvesters are not sustainable in their use and the question arises as to FSC certification as to sustainability as well here when we consider this practice.

I am no Luddite but harvesters and even chainsaws in forestry are not sustainable; definitely not in the long run.

Harvesters also cause serious damage to the forest environment through their activities.

When you consider the size of those machines, the weight and the amount of fuel they require sustainability certainly does not rank high. And the use of such machines also turns the lumber thus produced into a not very sustainable wood.

From an ethical standpoint the machine also is a questionable tools as it replaces many jobs and despite that timber products have not come down in price.

In many places even tractors for pulling out the felled trees are being replaced – once again – by (heavy) horses and in some instances even the felling is being done by old-fashioned methods, such as the two-man crosscut saw and the axe.

The truth is that, with petroleum-based fuels getting more and more expensive, the time may not be all that far off that we will need to be doing things like this “by hand” and with horses again, rather than by the heavy machines used today.

The certification of any wood product must also include in which way the timber was being felled and whether that was done in a sustainable way.

© 2011

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