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A study of five timber harvesting systems used for streamside logging

University of British Columbia

A survey of thirty-nine (39) industrial forest engineers was conducted to provide guidelines as to what harvesting system is best suited to specific stand and topographic variables when extracting streamside timber. The advantages and disadvantages of the operational characteristics of the standard highlead spar, mini spar, slackline, grapple yarder and rubber tire skidder are discussed both in terms of site disturbance and wood debris in British Columbia Coastal streams. Productivity and cost data are analyzed for the standard highlead spar, grapple yarder and rubber tire skidder for three selected streamside conditions. The extra cost incurred by the forest sector to comply with stream protection measures requested by fisheries personnel for pre and post harvesting treatments is also presented. Findings indicate that specific topographic and timber conditions, plus the limitations of each harvesting system dictate the selection of the system when logging adjacent to small British Columbia Coastal streams. The grapple yarder is shown to be the most cost effective and efficient system for streamside timber harvest and stream debris management. The stump to dump productivities for the highlead spar, grapple yarder and rubber tire skidder are found to differ. For the three terrain conditions cited, the grapple yarder is shown to be most productive, while the rubber tire skidder is the least costly. Stream protection costs for fisheries concerns were found to be a substantial extra cost to the forest sector. Debris clean-up costs in particular, ranged from $3.00 to $15.00 per lineal metre of stream. The recommendations of the survey respondents and current literature all clearly demonstrate that each area to be harvested having fish values must be dealt with on a site specific basis.

Text

2010-05-04

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/24428

Forestry

University of British Columbia

Graduate