The Preservation of Sicilian Forests with Poorly Mechanized Logging Processes

Abstract

In the province of Agrigento (Sicily), owing to lack of funds, machinery and permanently employed workers, it is necessary to forecast costs and time required for thinning out about 1500 ha of artificial forest using only chain saws and temporarily employed manpower.This study was made to find out how costs and labour productivity vary with tree species, age, size, forest density, land orography and ground uneveness, in order to decide in which areas the change from artificial to natural forest, by gradually thinning out the non-autochthonous trees, could be done at the least cost. Logging processes have been monitored at nine different test sites of about 1 ha each.The results show that labour productivity and consequently costs are increased by the unevenness of the ground and its gradient, but only slightly increased by tree density and size. The presence of species with a low number of branches or of trees of relatively young age (<20 years), increases labour productivity and decreases the logging costs.