Sawmill Operators Research Articles

Navigating the timber nexus: Balancing livelihoods and environmental concerns in the Sheka Zone, Ethiopia

This study examines the interplay between timber extraction, livelihoods, and environmental sustainability in Ethiopia's under-researched Sheka Zone. We employ a multi-method approach to assess practices and perspectives of loggers, foresters, and sawmill operators. Findings reveal a complex relationship, with semi-mechanized extraction emerging as a potential balance between economic viability and environmental responsibility. The research highlights the need for interventions like transitioning loggers to sustainable techniques and fostering knowledge exchange across stakeholders. This interdisciplinary study contributes to sustainable development discourse by exploring the economic viability of various extraction methods and advocating for policies that support both livelihoods and long-term environmental conservation

Maximizing value yield in wood industry through flexible sawing and product grading based on wane and log shape

The optimization of sawing processes in the wood industry is critical for maximizing efficiency and profitability. The introduction of computerized tomography scanners provides sawmill operators with three-dimensional internal models of logs, which can be used to assess value and yield more accurately. We present a methodology for solving the sawing optimization problem employing a flexible sawing scheme that allows greater flexibility in cutting logs into products while considering product quality classes influenced by wane defects. The methodology has two phases: preprocessing and optimization. In the preprocessing phase, two alternative algorithms are given that generate and evaluate the potential sawing positions of products by considering the 3D surface of the log, product size requirements, and product quality classes. In the optimization phase, a maximum set-packing problem is solved for the preprocessed data using mixed-integer programming (MIP), aiming to obtain a feasible cut pattern that maximizes value yield. This is implemented in a system named FlexSaw, which takes advantage of parallel computation during the preprocessing phase and utilizes a MIP solver during the optimization phase. The proposed sawing methods are evaluated on the Swedish Pine Stem Bank. Additionally, FlexSaw is compared with an existing tool that utilizes cant sawing. Results demonstrate the superiority of flexible sawing. While the practical feasibility of implementing a flexible way of sawing logs is constrained by the limitations of current sawmill machinery, the potential increase in yield promotes the exploration of alternative machinery in the wood industry.

Challenges to smallholder forestry policy reform on a postindustrial logging frontier: lessons from the Amazon estuary

In 2013, policy makers from the Brazilian State of Amapá launched regulatory reforms intended to streamline options to formalize smallholder forest management. This paper reviews that policy reform process and analyses observations from local stakeholders to identify lessons for the promotion of smallholder forestry. In 2014, 2017 and 2021, interviews were conducted with family timber producers and sawmill operators in floodplain communities and regional timber buyers to evaluate the impact of the policy reform on their operations. Interviews with policy makers sought to understand the rationale behind the reform and how the process played out. Although the r eform efforts were well intentioned, results illustrate how bureaucratic inertia and complexity obstructed efforts to simplify policy and how policy did not address smallholder needs. While the reforms did not have the intended effect, the case offers lessons for future policy reform efforts.

Editor's Introduction

Like Appalachian coal mining, the Northwest logging industry has not gone down without a fight. Again, somewhat akin to the politics of mineworking communities in West Virginia, the protagonists in ensuing bitter fights over jobs versus environmental protectionism have skewed traditional class alliances and threatened long-standing regional progressive traditions. As Steven Beda makes clear in his assessment of a still-smoldering controversy that upended ambitious cap-and-trade legislation to stem logging in 2020, environmental regulation combined with a more long-term sectoral economic decline have fueled a decidedly right-wing version of populism across the region since the early 1970s. In this thoughtful assessment of Oregon's internally conflicted Timber Unity rank and file—a movement based on marginal, independent timber contractor-producers and small sawmill operators who draw variously on old-Wobbly and antiregulatory rhetoric redirected at “elitist” protectors of the spotted owl and a recreation-oriented middle class—Beda discovers a microcosm of a larger rural shift away from radical working-class identities (see A. Brooke Boulton's accompanying Common Verse poem) toward the defensiveness of populist backlash.Francis Ryan tracks an important but little-noticed component of the post–World War II labor force: school crossing guards. Born of the Baby Boom expansion of school-age children combined with a population of mothers eager for rewarding part-time work, official, uniformed crossing guards—taking the place of otherwise overworked police officers—became a fixture at urban intersections beginning in the early 1950s. Although initially linked in the public mind to the “voluntary” sector associated with “PTA women” and others, Ryan convincingly connects them to a labor feminist tradition centered on an emergent public sector workforce. By the 1960s, the guards’ economic demands encompassed both benefits and wages, and their formalized associations began to affiliate with established unions like AFSCME and the SEIU. Not surprisingly, the urban fiscal crises of the 1970s also directly touched the interracial guard associations, who fought back against massive job cuts. Yet the real threat—and seeming denouement—to this once-classic urban occupation, suggests Ryan, came with a decline of collective, public protection of street corners by the guards, replaced by the hyper-individualized vigilance over children by their own parents.In the course of a larger biographical study of civil rights and labor icon, A. Philip Randolph, Eric Arnesen pauses here to zero in on Randolph's relation to what might be considered the ultimate expression of late 1930s Popular Front radicalism: the National Negro Congress. With a spirited assault on both racial and economic exploitation—critiquing the inadequacies of the New Deal, supporting interracial trade unionism, combating segregation , and opposing fascism—the NNC temporarily repaired a breach between Communist Party–linked militants led by Ben Davis Jr. and the heretofore vociferously anticommunist socialist, Randolph. Just how responsible (despite their public attempts to submerge their identity) was the party cadre for the NNC's direction and initial strategic success defines a sustained research quest. Against the “reassessment” of many recent historians in the service of a more broad-based, “grassroots” understanding of Popular Front initiatives like the NNC, Arnesen insists that the centrality of the party's role must be reckoned with.As is frequently the case, the books under review cover the labor map, touching down on a rich historical mix of geography and chronology. Subjects covered include at least three that our readers are not likely to have encountered before: turtle harvesters in the Caribbean, women working in the production of British cinema, and Mozambican migrants passing across the “night trains” to and from apartheid South Africa. Among generally positive and respectful treatment of their charges, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer tweaks Michael Kazin's history of Democratic Party successes for forgetting that given the flawed structure of American democracy, the party itself is “not enough to win and govern.” Similarly, Benjamin Goldfrank faults John French's otherwise “excellent” biography of Brazilian leader Lula for underplaying its hero's collaboration with a culture of “clientelism” that (at least temporarily) reversed his and his movement's fortunes. Less positive yet is Joseph Viteritti's treatment of Benjamin Holtzman's study of neoliberalism and New York City's fiscal crisis: curious readers will likely want to consult the original before making up their own minds.

Assessment of Air Pollution and Health Hazard Associated with Selected Sawmills in Port Harcourt Metropolis

This study aimed to assess air pollution and health hazards around selected sawmills within Port Harcourt metropolis. The physicochemical parameters of the air at the sawmilling sites were determined using onsite air quality analysers. The microbiological parameters were determined using the settling plate technique and the isolates identified based on their cultural and biochemical characteristics. Results showed that estimates of the monitored physicochemical parameters varied with prevalent human activity, time of exposure and atmospheric conditions. At Rumosi, SO2, VOCs and TSP with a concentration 1.250 ppm, 550.500 ppm, 323.200 µg/m3 respectively exceeded the Federal Ministry of Environment (FMEv) & World Health Organization (WHO) limit irrespective of the atmospheric condition, time and day of sampling, while the temperature, PM2.5, PM10 and NO2 with a concentration of 39.450oC, 209 µg/m3, 348.350 µg/m3, 0.181ppm respectively varied and was within the FMEv acceptable standard. At SARS Road Sawmill 1, VOCs, PM10 and TSP exceeded the FMEv limit while at SARS Road Sawmill 2, SO2, NO2, VOCs, PM10 and TSP exceeded the FMEv limits. Microbiological analysis revealed that the bioaerosols contained 12 bacterial genera (Aeromonas, Citrobacter, Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, Klebsiella, Serratia, Pseudomonas, Proteus, Providencia, Shigella, Enterobacter and Bacillus) and 7 fungal genera (Penicillium, Fusarium, Geotrichium, Cladosporium, Rhizopus and Trichophyton and Aspergillus) with total heterotrophic bacterial count (THBC) and total fungal count (TFC) ranging from 2711-26980 CFU/m3 and 373-12851 CFU/m3 respectively. The study also showed that sawmills within Port Harcourt do not pay much attention to the provision and use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), as they were generally not provided. The sawmill workers commonly reported cough and chest pain which they admitted could be associated with their jobs. This study has shown that air around sawmill sites contains inhalable chemical and biological agents which could cause respiratory problems to workers with prolonged exposure and dose response. Sawmill operators should provide and enforce the use of PPE within their facility. It is recommended that sawmill workers and other visitors wear personal protective gadgets in the processing area of the sawmill factories. Further study to relate workers symptoms with emission is recommended.

Occupational Hazards and Safety of Sawmill Operators in Ogbese Ondo State, Nigeria

This study examined the hazards and safety procedures adopted by sawmill operators in Ogbese, Ondo State, Nigeria. Data were collected through the administration of a set of structured questionnaire to examine the hazards associated with sawmill operators and safety practices adopted. Thirty (30) operators were purposively selected and administered with the questionnaire. Analysis was done using descriptive and correlation statistics. Findings, among others, revealed that sawmill operators do not have the required health safety gadgets needed to secure them from various hazards associated with their operations. Environmental pollutions, such as, smoke from burning sawdust, noise from heavy machinery in the industries, heavy trucks that carried sliced wood, solid and liquid wastes which caused nuisance to the environment posed serious health challenges to the operators and residents in the environment. The study proffered policy statements that could enhance the health and safety of sawmill operators and improve the environment.

Big Jim Eastland: The Godfather of Mississippi by J. Lee Annis

Reviewed by: Big Jim Eastland: The Godfather of Mississippi by J. Lee Annis Marco Robinson Big Jim Eastland: The Godfather of Mississippi. By J. Lee Annis Jr. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2016. Pp. xii, 426. $35.00, ISBN 978-1-4968-0614-7.) To date, this book is the most comprehensive and authoritative work on the life of James Oliver Eastland, former six-term Mississippi senator and perennial Washington, D.C., political power broker. J. Lee Annis Jr. frames Eastland "as a quiet patron for the common white men and women of the Magnolia State, be they ginners or farmers, peckerwood sawmill operators or poultry producers, or even those African Americans who respected his authority as a white man" (p. 5). In contrast to the persona of a white supremacist demagogue, Annis presents Eastland in a nuanced light as a Bourbon politician who maintained connections to Mississippi's "plebeian white majority" and as having a profound impact on the federal judiciary through facilitating the confirmations of several federal judges (p. 7). Annis's ultimate purpose in the book "is to illuminate the parts of Mississippi's past that spawned Eastland's ideology, as well as to explore how Eastland reacted for the third of a century after World War II to changes in the American consciousness, which, particularly in the area of race relations, he saw as revolutionary" (p. 4). The "Godfather of Mississippi," as former Mississippi senator Trent Lott warmly referred to Eastland, was an enigmatic, controversial, and complex political figure. Annis devotes the first four chapters of the book to examining the aspects of Mississippi's history that birthed Eastland's social and political ideologies. Eastland's membership in the white landed aristocracy of Mississippi profoundly shaped his childhood and his ideas regarding race as a young man. Annis asserts, "In rural communities like Doddsville, whites and blacks lived near each other, but African Americans were expected to know that they were inferior and to show deference to all whites" (p. 31). Ultimately, this feature of Eastland's rearing served as the basis for his ideas regarding race and informed his decisions regarding his political platform on social equality. Annis concludes Eastland took this "paternalistic outlook" with him to Washington in 1941 and "sought to preserve" this "racial order" for the entirety of his political career (p. 33). Eastland's political career emerged in the shadow of Theodore G. "The Man" Bilbo, an early 1900s charismatic white supremacist and outspoken political stalwart in Mississippi. While Eastland served as a state representative [End Page 1040] and Bilbo was governor of Mississippi, Eastland and two other young state representatives were known as "Bilbo's 'Little Three'" (p. 24). Years later, Bilbo and Eastland's relationship soured when Bilbo backed an opponent of Eastland in a close U.S. Senate race. Annis uses this falling-out to illustrate the personal and political differences between two of the South's most defiant politicians in regard to racial equity. In this instance, Annis paints Eastland as a Bourbon politician and not as a "populist demagogue" (p. 6). After Bilbo's death in 1947, Eastland came to the helm as the heir apparent spokesman for white supremacy and the pro-segregationist position in Mississippi. The burgeoning social changes of the 1950s and 1960s presented a myriad of challenges to the white political establishment in the South. However, white southern political leaders were prepared for the long haul and committed to massive resistance. Eastland played instrumental roles as an architect of the Dixiecrat movement and, more pronouncedly, as an arbiter of any civil rights legislation by way of his position as chair of the Senate Civil Rights Subcommittee. Eastland unyieldingly continued his obstructionism of expanded voting rights, antilynching legislation, and other full citizenship rights for black people throughout the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. Big Jim Eastland: The Godfather of Mississippi is a well-written and thoroughly researched biography that makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complex political dealings of Senator Eastland and Mississippi's multifarious political history. Additionally, Annis makes a contribution by exploring Eastland's role as chair of the Senate Judiciary...

Evaluation of the performance of eco-friendly lightweight interlocking concrete paving units incorporating sawdust wastes and laterite

Abstract This research investigates the performance of sawdust wastes and laterite as an alternative lightweight fine aggregate and cementitious material respectively in eco-friendly lightweight interlocking concrete paving units (ICPU) using a mix ratio of 1:2:4. The lightweight sawdust and laterite were studied due to their abundant availability as industrial waste and cheap local construction material. Eco-friendly ICPU is a low-strength concrete with compressive strengths of 6.02–7.57 and 3.66–4.52 N/mm2 at 5 and 10% sawdust replacements with bulk density ranges of 1,756.62–1,810.9 and 1,522.89–1,532.4 kg/m3 respectively which exceeded the minimum compressive strength requirement of 3.45 N/mm2 in non-load bearing concrete applications. Though air curing recorded higher compressive strengths at early curing ages, water curing was recommended to facilitate complete hydration owing to the hygroscopic nature of the sawdust. The packing and filling effects of the lightweight sawdust coupled with the combined pozzolanic properties of the sawdust waste and laterite seemed to have contributed to the slight increase in CS of the eco-friendly ICPU when heated. Effective partnerships among the State and Local Government Waste Management Authorities, sawmill operators and informal waste collectors were recommended for effective sawdust waste recovery, storage and usage in eco-friendly construction.

Update the wood dust exposure values included in the job-exposure matrix MatEmESp by making use of the WOODEX database

To revise and complete information on prevalence and intensity of wood dust exposure among Spanish workers in the MatEmESp job-exposure matrix, based on data from the WOODEX database. Exposure groups by economic activity in WOODEX were linked to the occupations in MatEmESp. The WOODEX data were then used to calculate new values of exposure prevalence and intensity for the occupations included in MatEmESp. A total of 18 occupations in MatEmESp were linked to exposure groups in the WOODEX database. This allowed estimation of new exposure intensity values for these 18 occupations and calculation of new exposure prevalence values for 16 of them. In addition, a new at-risk occupation, previously not in MatEmESp, was identified. The occupations with the highest prevalence values are sawmill operators (CNO-94 code 8141) and operators of machinery for making wood products (CNO-94 code 8340). The new calculations indicate that 10.5% of at-risk workers in MatEmESp are exposed to concentrations above 5 mg/m3. The WOODEX data provided more detailed information about exposure profiles to wood dust and are mainly based on Spanish data. In contrast, 95% of the data on wood dust exposure inMatEmESp is based on extrapolations from other countries or on expert considerations.

Divided land base and overlapping forest tenure in Alberta, Canada: A simulation study exploring costs of forest policy

The forest planning environment in Alberta is complicated by multiple forms of forest tenure and by an arbitrary division of the forest into separate softwood and hardwood land bases. The area within and surrounding the Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. Forest Management Agreement (FMA) area exemplifies the problem, with a large number of independent forest products companies operating in the area. We model 17 sawmill operators and the Alberta-Pacific pulp mill trying to simultaneously satisfy their mill feedstock requirements from a forest.We examined the inefficiencies introduced by this tenure system using Tardis, a computer simulation model incorporating access development, timber harvest, and regeneration. We examined two scenarios: one representing the business-as-usual case where the 18 forest products companies are operating independently, and one where the forest is managed by one company that harvests timber and delivers it to each of the mills.The costs of the present tenure arrangements are, we believe, substantial enough to warrant a thorough re-examination of forest policy and tenure arrangements in Alberta, specifically with respect to land base designation and overlapping tenures. Key words: forest tenure, simulation modelling, timber harvest scheduling, policy analysis

SMALLHOLDER TIMBER PRODUCTION AND MARKETING: THE CASE OFGMELINA ARBOREAIN CLAVERIA, NORTHERN MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES

ABSTRACT A survey of the production and marketing system of Gmelina arborea (Roxb.) in smallholder farms was conducted in Claveria. Survey respondents included farmers, who planted and have undertaken their first harvest of Gmelina trees, and sawmill operators in the nearby coastal towns who are processing and marketing Gmelina logs. Average farm size in the study was 2.5 ha. The majority of farmers have planted half or less than half of their farms to Gmelina arborea. The most common method of planting Gmelina is block planting while some farmers planted Gmelina as hedgerows along contour areas. The number of trees planted in these smallholder farms ranged from less than 100 to 1020 trees. Farmers planted Gmelina trees mainly for construction materials for future family houses. However, most of the farmers had to cut and sell their trees to meet immediate financial needs such as payment of their children's schooling and loans, and to buy farm equipment, household appliances, and animal feed. Harvested tr...

From Country Lanes to Sunbelt Boosterism: The South Since World War II

From Country Lanes to Sunbelt Boosterism: The South Since World War II Dan T. Carter (bio) Numan V. Bartley. The New South, 1945–1980. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995. xiii + 548 pp. Notes, critical essay on authorities, and index. $39.95. Between 1948 and 1967, the Louisiana State University Press published nine of the ten projected volumes for its “History of the South,” a series ending with George Tindall’s account of The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945. By the mid-1980s, however, it was clear that an additional volume was needed to describe the tumultuous changes that had occurred in the region in the decades after World War II and the Press commissioned Numan Bartley of the University of Georgia to undertake the daunting task of describing that transformation. In The New South, 1945–1980, Bartley has succeeded to a remarkable degree and his work is a welcome addition to the original series. On the eve of World War II, the American South was in the midst of an economic and demographic upheaval. In the generation that followed the war, the percentage of southerners living on the land fell from more than 40 percent to less than 15 percent; during the 1950s alone 3.5 million southerners—two-thirds of them black—left the region altogether. The traditional southern world that revolved around family, clan, church, and community reeled under what Bartley describes—with some ambivalence—as the “juggernaut of progress” (p. 124). Through a dozen well paced chapters, Bartley weaves together the many strands of this complex story. In describing American politics over the last two decades, it has become commonplace for scholars and writers to note what writer John Edgerton coined the “Americanization of Dixie and the Southernization of America.” But Bartley reminds us that the interaction between region and nation was always a two-way street even during the 1950s and 1960s when the racial struggles of the era made the South seem well outside the American mainstream. Rock and roll (to cite one example) may not have been a southern invention, but it is difficult to imagine contemporary popular American music in the absence of the Mississippi-born Elvis Presley who (in his early days at least) melded the musical culture of [End Page 136] working-class black and white southerners and helped to change the face of American music. And even though Billy Graham was based in North Carolina, his marriage of southern fundamentalism, cultural conservatism and anticommunism prefigured the resurgence of a national movement that culminated in the creation of the Christian Coalition. If Bartley is sensitive to the interaction of regional and national history, his story—at least through the 1960s—remains firmly rooted in the region and his central theme is the relationship between power and politics. As late as the middle of the twentieth century, the solidly Democratic political leadership often seemed little more than errand boys for elites who dominated the region’s economy: remnants of the old planter class, lumber and sawmill operators, textile millowners, small businessmen and the banker-lawyers who serviced them. For these southerners, cheap, nonunionized labor, low taxes (and social services to match) formed the core of their economic philosophy and they bluntly defended “disfranchisement, malapportionment, and one party-politics as proper and desirable methods for preserving the southern way of life” (p. 33). He also gives a nuanced account of the various dissenting groups, beginning with popular front liberals of the late 1930s and 1940s. Inspired by Roosevelt’s New Deal and supported through the mid-1940s by national organized labor (particularly the Congress of Industrial Organizations), this fragile coalition sought to build a biracial political movement on the twin shoulders of “economic justice” and political reform. But they were always crippled by the truncated, white-only electorate, and southern conservatives—skillfully deploying anticommunist rhetoric and race-baiting taunts—easily brushed aside this brief postwar flowering of southern liberalism. Bartley is particularly skilled at linking the “zeitgeist” of white conservatism and sketching the way in which a broader religious and cultural conservatism reinforced the status quo. The emergence of a substantial middle class in the decades after the war...

Forestry-Related Educational Needs of Innovative Ohio Sawmill Operators

Abstract Thirty-two innovative Ohio sawmill operators were surveyed to assess perceived "job importance" and their "current knowledge" of 67 job-related skills divided into 6 subject areas. The discrepancy or gap between importance and knowledge scores was used to compute perceived educational need scores for the skills, 21 of which are highlighted in this paper. Although the subject area of "sawmill production" was ranked first by sawmill operators in both importance and knowledge, the areas of "environmental awareness" and "forest product marketing" had the highest perceived educational need. Seventy-five percent of the forests-related skills received "high" importance scores; however, with the exception of "maintaining an adequate log supply," forestry-related skills ranked in or near the bottom-half of all skills in perceived educational need. Sawmillers rated their knowledge of forestry-related skills such as "understanding the benefits of TSI" higher than their knowledge level of skills such as "exporting lumber" and "developing new wood products." Recommendations are given for field foresters to assist them in initiating a meaningful dialogue with sawmill operators to help bridge the often-encountered communication gap between sawmiller, forester, and NIPF landowner. North. J. Appl. For. 13(3):135-139.

Energy related aspects of timber drying

SYNOPSIS Timber, while being a low energy intensive material, requires a relatively high energy input in its processing operations, particularly drying. The schedules used for drying timber have largely been developed empirically by various government laboratories, trade organizations and sawmill operators. The schedules are generally low temperature and conservative which can mean unnecessary energy consumption and needlessly long residence times in the kiln. Thus processing costs are high due to recurrent energy costs and a relatively low return on capital investment in physical plant. This paper considers the energy related aspects of timber in general and the results of an empirical study in particular which indicate that the inherent energy advantages of using timber can be improved by the use of High Temperature Drying (HTD) techniques.

THE SUPPLY OF TIMBER IN MIYAGI PREFECTURE

The analysis of regional (local) timber markets is important in order to make understood the regional characteristics of the flows of timber. For this reason, the author analyzed the changes of timber supply areas in Miyagi Prefecture in relation to the rapid growth of demand in Sendai timber market. The results of the analysis are summarized as follows: (1) The timber supply area of Sendai includes Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures, but most of it is made up of the eastern region of Miyagi Prefecture and Sendai City itself. (2) In the eastern region of Miyagi Prefecture, the sawmills are divided into two groups because of their sales areas. The northern area, which is mainly concentrated in Motoyoshi County, ships most of its timber to Sendai and outside of Miyagi Perfecture such as Tokyo. The southern area, which is located in Ishinomaki City, ships their timber to the small local consuming areas of Ishinomaki and Sendai. (3) In Ishinomaki City, the largest timber producing area in Miyagi Prefecture, the location of Woodwork Manufacturing Estate for Sendai timber market affected the organization of timber supply. Up to the middle of the 1960's when the Woodwork Manufacturing Estate was established, most of the sawmills were small to medium, in size and used only domestic timber and shipped most their products to local consumers in Ishinomaki. Put, since then, some of the large sawmills and factories in the Woodwork Manufacturing Estate have supplied the imported timber to small to medium sized sawmills in Ishinomaki City and become wholesalers of timber as well. Consequently, some of the larger factories have come to control the small to medium sized sawmills in terms of the supply of imported timber. The existence of a dual structure between the large and the small to medium sized sawmills in the timber industry in Ishinomaki was to be noticed (4) In the Motoyoshi County, where is an abundance of forest resources, most of the sawmills which were established at the ealier stage, and most of their products were supplied to the consumers in Sendai, with a exception of a few small sawmills which met the local demand for timber. But for the past 5 to 10 years, most of the sawmills have started to ship their products to the markets in both Tokyo and Sendai. Owing to the shortage of domestic timber, the linkage with the Sendai market becomes rather unstable recently. (5) In the case of Sendai City, the size of mills are small, but sawmill operators also perform the function of dealers in timber market. This has been brought by the diversified demand in the market. Thus, it would be appropriate to recognize the sawmills in Sendai as timber dealers rather than as sawmills. They sell timber produced by other sawmill together with their own products. They usually buy timber and deal with sawmills in Motoyoshi and Ishinomaki in the wholesale market in Sendai. In addition to these another feature of sawmills in Sendai is based on the fact that most of mills are located in such a conjested urban area that they cannot meet the rapid growth in demand for timber.