MacBlo logging
Continued from page eight
harvesting is happening in most
MB divisions.

Hallberg says that MacBlo is los-
ing money on 95% of the Crown
lands it harvests, despite improve-
ments in productivity introduced
with a co-management, co-design
system (see Lumberworker, Decem-
ber, 1998).

_ “We still can’t afford to be on
Crown lands at this point in time,”
he added.

On the private lands it logs, which
are geographically located within
the boundaries of TFL 44 on Van-
couver Island, the company would
like to export Togs overseas, but if it
does, it would have to pay a fee in
lieu of manufacturing tax to the
province of British Columbia.

On private lands outside of the
TFL, it is free to do so.

“We probably would look at export-
ing these other (private wood) areas
as we get to (them) — that are out-
side of the TFL,” said Hallberg.

Domestic consumption accounts
for about 90% of Sproat Lake’s pro-
duction. The hemlock He logs go
to the Pacific Papers Alpulp mill in
Port Alberni. Gang fir logs from 8” -
10” go to the non-union Coastline
mill in Nanaimo, which pays cash,
and the sawlogs 12” and more in
the butt go to Alberni Pacific Divi-
sion in Port Alberni and the high-
grade Chemainus sawmill.

The company encourages the sort-
ing of logs in the bush as much as

ossible, thereby eliminating dry-

and sort costs and jobs.

VARIABLE RETENTION HARVESTING

The Lumberworker saw areas where
the logging crews were leaving 5%
and 10% retention in second growth.
On other parts of the division, it was
leaving up to 25% retention.

What makes a 5% retention?

'That’s when there is no clearcut
area that is more than two tree
lengths from standing timber and
there are about 5% of the number of
original stems left standing in the
area logged.

At that point in time, MB’s engi-
neers were laying out variable reten-
tion settings and marking the “leave
trees.”

Hallberg said that, eventually,

> A mechanical Rereesiee with a Keto head, here marches through 50-60 year old
xports have shot up at several MacBlo divisions.

the fallers will be deciding on their
own which ones are wind firm and
to be left standing.

“In this division we're seeing open-
ings of about five hectares,” said
Hallberg. “So now we’re dealing
with a lot more moving equipment
around.”

By going to smaller openings and
leaving more retention the company
is getting around “green up” provi-
sions in the Forest Practices Code,
which can limit logging in adjacent
cut blocks if there is a nearby
clearcut.

Whereas MB has said that vari-
able retention methods will add, on
average, about $4 per cubic meter
to already high wood costs, Hallberg
said “the idea is that we’re going to
get timber out of areas we previ-
ously couldn’t get to.”

MacBlo is using hydraulic grap-

ples (hoe chuckers) to get access to
much of its second growth lands. In
other areas it is using a combina-
tion of hand falling and a mechani-
cal harvesting head on a hydraulic
machine.

Out in the Lowrey Lake area, the
Lumberworker saw a Hitachi “juicer”
with a Finnish-made Keto head on
it, processing second growth of up to
40” in the butt. Anything over that,
and the operator, who is a faller
who has been retrained to run equip-
ment, gets out of the cab and drops
the tree by hand if necessary.

The harvester lets the cut tree
fall into other standing timber to be
harvested. This both softens the fall
of the tree to cut down on breakage
and serves to knock limbs off of
stems to be felled.

Harvester operator Ed Frost, who
had been a faller for 29 years since

a i

fe

(ike

7. a 2

the age of 25 was retrained for the
job during the co-design process.

“Things change in the bush so we
have changed too,” he said. “Mechan-
ical harvesting is coming more and
more and it’s here to stay.”

Mr. Bartram, a salaried staffer,
who works with I.W.A. engineering
technicians Jurgen Huneke and
Howard Groeneveld said the com-
pany designs harvesting plans from
duly of one year to July of the next.

At Sproat Lake, like other MB
divisions, 20 percent of the harvest
will come out of variable retention
systems in the first year. That will
increase by a full 20% in each of the
next four years until all areas are
harvesting by various variable reten-
tion methods.

In old growth, variable retention
criteria, explained Bartrum, must
meet three criteria, and it must be
safe to log.

First there must bea certain amount
of area retained forever. Then a cer-
tain area of the opening (at least 50%)
must be within an “edge influence”
from standing timber. Lastly there
has to be an example of non-clearcut
harvesting stewardship. Those stew-
ardship requirements have been set
by MB’s central Forestry Committee.

“We might have an area in the
pass that you might call a clearcut
with reserves that doesn’t make it
into the variable retention category
because it doesn’t meet all three
tests,” he said.

All through the planning process,
safety is the most important consid-
eration there is.

“We tell our guys that if it isn’t
safe, we don’t go there,” said Hall-
berg. “We plan it so that the trees
left standing are windfirm and well
rooted. We’ve got to make sure that
when these (hoe chucker) machines
swing around that they don’t hit the
trees that are to be left standing
and knock tops off.”

1.W.A. has expressed some con-
cern about MB’s new approach.

“We need to be clear that this is
simply not high-grading dressed up
in green,” said national union presi-
dent Dave Haggard.

“We need to be sure our members
are safe and we need to see that, in
other areas, helicopters won’t sim-
ply be used in areas that can and
should be logged conventionally. We
are watching what the company is
doing very closely.”

second growth on private lands. Private land harvesting and log

LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1999/9