The harvesting of trees from an ITP on a sustainable basis is the end of a seven year growing cycle and the beginning of the next seven year cycle.
It is the time the forest grower receives a return on his investment and it is the time he needs to re-invest for the next cycle. This is why it is critical that it is done according to strict norms and standards to ensure that sustainability is attained.
Many different harvesting systems were investigated locally and internationally before deciding on a suitable harvesting system. The cable yarding system that has been implemented is environmentally friendly and ensures sustainability.
If the cable yarding system deployed was not used, vast tracts of land would have been damaged and not been re-established to ITP. To ensure Sustainable Forest Management (SFM), when one harvests one is in fact preparing the site for the next rotation, it is thus vital to ensure the soils and sites are preserved.
The cable yarding system is considered as a low impact harvesting system as there is very little trafficking on the soil as the logs are held in a carriage suspended from a cable when being extracted to roadside.
Felling the trees and extracting them to roadside for processing is the first part of the process. Transporting the logs to the point of sale or processing facility is an important part of the operation. This happens by two means, either by truck to the nearest log pond where the logs pass over a weighbridge and are loaded onto a barge. This barge will then move the logs down river to open sea and to point of sale. The second means is by truck along the plantation road network to point of sale, where it is first weighed and off loaded.
As stated earlier, LPF/0043 covers an area of about 431,000 hectares and there is a vast road network totaling a length of 6,700 kilometres of road.
This road network is the life line for the project. Without a proper road network the harvested timber cannot be transported. The roads must be correctly planned, taking into account the terrain and volume of timber to be moved on each road. There is an SOP for road construction and this is strictly followed to ensure that the roads are correctly constructed. Poorly constructed, unplanned roads result in unwanted erosion and soil loss.
Currently the timber from the plantation is marketed to four main markets namely:
1. Peeler logs
2. Sawmill logs; and
3. Pulp logs