Abstract
Horse skidding for extracting logwood is characterized as a niche activity in small-scale forestry, limited to small tracts and low volumes, where environmental impacts and aesthetics are concerned, and to operations with no wood-processing facilities. This article documents and analyzes the widespread persistence, current magnitude, and multiple advantages of horse skidding in large-scale industrial community forest enterprises in Chihuahua, Mexico. We extracted data from the logging permit files of 59 communities in the Sierra Tarahumara and conducted semi-structured interviews with community leaders and foresters in 18 communities, 17 random selections, and one purposefully selected case. There are nine communities that can be considered large-scale. Six of them use animal traction for 20%–100% of their volume. All have sawmills integrated with their operations. This includes the El Largo community with a ten-year volume of 3,169,019 m3 extracted from 123,810 ha entirely with horses. Respondents to the interviews report that horse skidding is more cost-effective than mechanized skidding, generates more employment, and has less impact on forests due to reduced carbon emissions. The widespread use of animal traction in large-scale industrial community forestry in Chihuahua demonstrates that horse skidding is not only a niche activity in small-scale forestry. Our data is preliminary, but we suggest that it highlights a need for further assessments of whether animal traction should be part of future efforts towards reduced impact, lower carbon emissions, and socially and economically just forest management.
Highlights
The historic use of animal traction for extracting logwood began to fade as early as the 1930s, as diesel tractors begin to replace horses and mules in the Southern United States
We compiled a database on forest management for 59 communities with authorized logging permits in the southern Sierra Tarahumara, a region defined as an Early Action REDD+ area by the Alianza Mexico
We randomly selected a sample of 17 communities for semi-structured interviews with responsible foresters and the elected community leader to collect supplementary data, which included data on the use of animal traction not reported in the forest management programs [12]
Summary
The historic use of animal traction for extracting logwood began to fade as early as the 1930s, as diesel tractors begin to replace horses and mules in the Southern United States. Between the 1940s and 1960s at all scales of logging, horses and other animals for skidding were replaced by tractors and winches, with an ongoing transition to using purpose-built forwarders and processers [1,2]. The available literature suggests that horse skidding is entirely confined to a niche activity in small-scale forestry, where it appears to have a minor role compared to tractor-based systems and cable systems [2]. Threshold limits that can range from 500 ha for smallholder tropical forestry in Brazil to 200 ha in Germany and as little as 3 ha in Italy and Spain have been suggested, while the average size of “family forests” in the US is 25 acres [2,6,8]
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