Proposed Harvest Volume By Species

Proposed Silvicultural System

Small group selection system with coupe size no more than tree height across the largest diameter. Coupe size is planned to be around 0.02-0.05 ha and not greater than 0.1 ha, thereby attempting to mimic natural gap size.

The silvicultural purpose is to maintain natural species mixture in near-natural diameter class distribution, thereby aiming to keep continuous forest cover at stand level. There shall be no clear felling or shelterwood system.

The silvicultural management target is to develop and maintain healthy uneven-aged stands under the group-selection system. By careful selection harvest, stand increment will be lifted and shifted to quality stems. Begin during the permit 10 year period to improve stand form and sawlog quality by periodic harvest that includes felling poor quality and some large-crowned over-mature trees. The framework and composition of the natural forest is always to be maintained by a system that allows trees to be carefully plucked out of the stand only after individual evaluation as to their present and future functional role in the stand structure.

Proposed Harvest Method

Low-impact with minimal ground disturbance and no damage to surrounding large trees will be imperative prerequisites to any harvesting.

Harvest of the allowable 500m3 cut under a permit will be on gentle terrain already accessible by track. Harvest is, therefore, anticipated to be by careful use of light vehicles ( ATV ) and winch. Coupes will only be defined where sufficient tracks are available. Harvest will only be considered if a track exists and a portable sawmill can be brought to the logs and milling can be onsite. This eliminates the need to extract logs from the forest, reducing the size of tracks necessary to reach the logs and reducing the need for any heavy machinery to enter the forest. Milled timber will be extracted along the track within the beech forest and out using the existing logging track for the Radiata Pine plantation forest.

A network of tracks will continue to be developed throughout the forest, each no wider than 1200mm. Felling will be avoided in the construction of the tracks as much as possible with a preference for alternate routes where trees pose an obstruction. The tracks will double as walking tracks whenever they are not used to transport equipment for milling or milled timber from a coupe site and will mainly follow natural contours. The tracks will ensure that the portable sawmill can be brought to within meters of logs felled in a coupe or wind throw. Logs will be positioned as close to horizontal as possible using cables and levers as necessary and the sawmill manually positioned around the log and the logs milled in place. This will be done using a Peterson All Terrain Saw ( ATS ) which is suited for setup and operation on rough terrain.

Specific details for any harvest will be presented in the annual logging plan submitted to MAF.