Although forest harvesting is machine-intensive, labour remains the most critical element for carrying out harvesting operations efficiently and in an acceptable manner in terms of their impact on the environment (Dykstra & Heinrich 1996). Moreover, only workers who are healthy, competent to fulfil their jobs, and motivated to work properly and efficiently, can be expected to contribute effectively to achieving progress towards environmentally sound forest harvesting practices.
As a minimum, the physical condition, skills, and personal interest of workers have to be taken into account when selecting them for work in forest harvesting operations. Attention to safety, adequate standards of comfort, sanitation, food, and welfare all have to be considered by the company; satisfactory living and working conditions should not be underestimated as effective motivators for achieving the optimum level of performance.
Another important aspect is adequate training according to job requirements. The practical training programme for an inventory crew should include at least the following:
· Identification of commercial tree species based on the tree identification manual
· Measuring of trees
· Quality criteria for harvestable trees
· Field organisation of pre-harvest survey
· Field test on training trail
Practical training programme for the felling crew:
· Safety considerations during felling activity
· Proper felling and directional felling techniques
· Maintenance of chainsaw and chain sharpening
· Field organisation of felling activity
· Use of tree location/felling maps
· Decision criteria for deciding whether or not to fell a selected tree
Practical training programme for the skidding crew:
· Field considerations for reducing the damage to the residual forest stand
· Field organisation of the extraction activities
· Use of tree location/extraction maps
Depending on the specific operation, workers are usually paid either a salary (e.g., monthly basis) or by a piece rate. The labour cost information given in Table 6 is based on data from Whiteman (1999a), plus additional information received from SBB and gathered during discussions with the workers in the field. It is intended only for estimating costs to permit comparisons between the two logging methods (see Section 6.3). In addition, extreme caution should be exercised when using the labour cost information given in Table 6 for any kind of analysis due to the very high inflation rates experienced by Suriname over the last few years.
Table 6. Forest employee compensation levels for this study. |
Category, |
Compensation[Sf / month] |
Category, |
Compensation[Sf / month] |
Management |
Felling |
||
Exploitation manager |
338,000 |
Operator |
760* |
Administrator |
211,000 |
Assistant |
506** |
Forest inventory |
Skidding/bulldozing |
||
Team leader |
203,000 |
Operator |
675,000 |
Tree spotter |
169,000 |
Assistant |
338,000 |
Compassman |
169,000 |
Loading |
|
Tree measurer |
118,000 |
Operator |
675,000 |
Assistant |
84,000 |
Assistant |
338,000 |
Miscellaneous |
Road haulage |
| |
Cook |
84,000 |
Operator |
422,000 |
Driver |
101,000 |
Assistant |
253,000 |
|
* Sf/m3. The felling operator was paid Sf 1,800 per tree felled, and this has been converted here into Sf/m3 of timber harvested. ** Sf/m3. The felling assistant was paid a fixed amount per day by the felling operator, and this has been converted here into Sf/m3 of timber harvested. |
The labour cost information used by Whiteman (1999a) was collected from one of the large foreign-controlled forest companies operating in Suriname and it was not possible to validate this information against other sources. However, in the absence of better data, part of this information was used in Section 6.3 to estimate operating costs.
Working time on the study operation was eight hours per day, including a one-hour lunch break. Using an index value of 100% for machine operators (skidder and loader), representative wage indexes are 62% for the truck driver, 50% for machine assistants, 24% for the inventory team leader, and 20% for the tree spotter. By comparison, wage indexes in a study of logging in the Amazon region in Brazil (Winkler 1994) were 100% for the truck driver, 72% for the logging crew leader, 71% for machine operators (skidder, crawler tractor, and loader), 64% for the chainsaw operator, and 34% for the felling assistant. Although some of these differences may be due to economic differences between the two countries, they may also be due in part to the relative importance attributed to certain occupations in conventional logging (Suriname) versus those in environmentally sound forest harvesting as applied by the company in Brazil where a trained and motivated harvesting workforce has been given a high priority.
In the study reported here, the chainsaw operator was paid Sf 1,800 per tree felled. The operator's assistant was hired and paid directly by the chainsaw operator and received a fixed amount per day. In Table 6 both compensation levels have been translated into Sf per cubic metre of trees felled.
The time and work studies on felling revealed that the chainsaw operator essentially works on a "task" basis, seeking to fell a certain number of trees per day rather than making full use of the time available. Several times during the study the felling operator stopped working at around lunch time after having cut a certain number of trees. The rest of the day was often spent hunting wild game. As a result, the effective workplace time of the felling crew averaged only five or six hours per day.
There was also a tendency for the chainsaw operator to reject larger trees, claiming that based on his personal experience a certain tree species is almost always rotten above a certain dbh. However, it turned out during the course of the studies that the chainsaw operator was not consistent in applying his self-introduced rule. Several times on following days he cut the same species with much larger dbh than the day before.
From the concessionaire's point of view, the piece-rate payment system for felling should be reconsidered and payment based on the volume of timber cut per day rather than the number of trees felled.