Safety and health in forest harvesting operations. Diagnosis and preventive actions. A review.

Abstract

Aim of study: to review the present state of the art in relation to the main labour risks and the most relevant results of recent studies evaluating the safety and health conditions of the forest harvesting work and better ways to reduce accidents.Area of study: It focuses mainly on developed Countries, where the general concern about work risks prevention, together with the complex idiosyncrasy of forest work in forest harvesting operations, has led to a growing interest from the forest scientific and technical community.Material and Methods: The main bibliographic and Internet references have been identified using common reference analysis tools. Their conclusions and recommendations have been comprehensively summarized.Main results: Collection of the principal references and their most important conclusions relating to the main accident risk factors, their causes and consequences, the means used towards their prevention, both instrumental as well as in the aspects of training and business management, besides the influence of the growing mechanization of logging operations on those risks.Research highlights: Accident risk is higher in forest harvesting than in most other work sectors, and the main risk factors such as experience, age, seasonality, training, protective equipment, mechanization degree, etc. have been identif ied and studied. The paper summarizes some relevant results, one of the principal being that the proper entrepreneurial risk management is a key factor leading to the success in minimizing labour risks.

Occupational Accidents Footprint: New Concept Linked to Chain of Custody in Sustainable Forest Management

“…To this end, an innovative approach to preventive issues related to the certification of the CoC integrated with LCA tools, in order to create more aggregated value to forest business, intends to apply explicit indicators and verifiers to SFM standards to mark accidents directly, and also, underpins the traceability of forest products and services. Some examples for fatal cases related to logging production are provided by Klun and Medved 15 and Cabeças 16 , both cited by Albizu-Urionabarrenetxea, P. et al 14 The methodology developed in this study to implement the occupational accidents footprint concept will be described below, and also results and their corresponding analysis, to finally deliver some conclusions and recommendations.…”

“…For example, same authors experienced difficulties to provide proper results while assessing LCA in forestry operations. Forest work is characterized by its seasonability: in the majority of companies most are not permanent 14 and then, forestry and logging operations are generally short term works. Also, since forestry and logging operations take place in open and variable environmental scenarios, that do not allow stable work conditions, is quite difficult to find clear comparative items like within fixed industrial workplaces.…”

Analysis of dust exposure during chainsaw forest operations

“…Motor-manual tree felling and processing (i.e., by chainsaw) is still very common in many countries (Montorselli et al 2010, Picchio et al 2010, Caliskan 2012, Albizu-Urionabarrenetxea et al 2013, Vusić et al 2013). Motor-manual forest operations are inherently dangerous (Wang et al 2003, Lindroos & Burström 2010, Tsioras et al 2011 and cannot benefit from the safety improvements offered by high mechanization (Bell 2002).…”

Occupational safety indicators for forest operations, sawmilling and wood-based panels manufacture: An international benchmarking

“…Some Central and Eastern Europe countries present high accident rates because of incomplete mechanization by low production and mountainous terrain. 7 On the other hand, manual forest work traditionally exhibits riskier levels, e.g. in Louisiana (USA) and Sweden loggers have an accident rate 4 times higher than for machine operators.…”

“…5 Regarding wages, forestry workers are generally below the average for other industries. 6 In Finland, payment method for production carries a negative change in worker behavior 7 ; while in Spain that most common type of remuneration is coinciding with high accident rates. 8 The occupational safety and health (OSH) situation is most problematic among the self-employed, farmers and contractors in forestry and logging operations.…”