FESA have undertaken a major revision of their logging practices guidelines.
Forest Engineering South Africa (FESA) has recently published their updated “Guidelines for Forest Engineering Practices in South Africa”. The guide has been developed as a management tool to provide generic guidelines for forest engineering activities (harvesting, transport and roads) in order to promote sustainable forest engineering practices. These guidelines have their origins in the South African Harvesting Code of Practice, developed in 1992. This was then updated in 1999 and renamed the Guidelines for Forest Engineering Practices in South Africa. This 2014 update is the third edition. These guidelines were developed to be used in conjunction with FESA’s other more technical logging manuals. The document covers the following areas:
- Values important to forest engineering. These include aspects such as soil and water protection.
- Planning. This is a new chapter and covers the different planning levels.
- Forest roads. This chapter includes planning, construction, maintenance and landings.
- Harvesting and extraction. Conventional roundwood logging and biomass harvesting is included.
- Timber and biomass transport. Performance based trucks, planning and the different configurations used for timber and biomass transport are included.
- Post harvesting operations.
The document is free-for-download from the ICFR website. Access at http://www.icfr.ukzn.ac.za/collaboration/forest-engineering-southern-africa/fesa-publications/