Year of publication 1981

Forests, which have a great potential source of income in developing countries, can and often do provide badly needed employment opportunities for rural people. In the recent past, and even today, tractor skidding was the logging technique mostly used in tropical mechanized logging. However, as forest development moves up to the hinterland, where the terrain is often too steep for tractor skidding, cable logging is often more advantageous, not only for productivity but also often for soil conservation. The effects of any logging system on the residual stand can have a bearing on which of any system to use. Cable logging was primarily developed in Central Europe and introduced into and redeveloped in North Europe, North America and Japan according to their own forest conditions. This Manual is designed to give the reader an overall picture of the different major cable logging systems being manufactured at this time and how these systems compare with each other. The most important aspect in trying to achieve this goal has been to describe all systems in a similar manner, in order that the reader can directly compare the different systems and determine which system or systems are appropriate for a given set.