Increased steep slope volumes in western Canada have necessitated the need for this specific focus.
There are large volumes of timber that are growing on slopes greater than 30% in Western Canada. The decreased fibre supply resulting from the mountain pine beetle epidemic has resulted in the region needing to access more timber from steep terrain. FPInnovations has launched a five-year steep slope harvesting initiative called STEEP that has three main goals:
- Increase safety of operations on steep slope and reduce accidents by 50%.
- Increase margins on fibre recovered from steep terrain by Canadian $ 5 per m³.
- Provide an additional sustainable volume of 2 million m³ from steep terrain.
To achieve these goals, FPInnovations will increase its research efforts in its harvesting, resource roads, and transportation programs. There will also be increased liaison with international partners who have similar challenges, as many regions of the world including New Zealand, and countries in South America and Europe are also actively engaged in developing and testing new technology for harvesting in steep terrain. The focus in thebeginning will be on technology assessments and gradual implementation in western Canadian operations, along with collaboration with equipment manufacturers and safety agencies to ensure that the innovations considered will have a positive impact on the safety record of the industry. In the medium term, FPInnovations will also aim to foster the development of domestically-produced technologies and work with government partners to ensure that environmentally acceptable best practices are used in harvesting, road construction, and regeneration. Source: https://fpinnovations.ca/MediaCentre/Newsletters/FPSolutions/2015/05-September/FO_feature_en.html