Studies by FAO have shown that nearly half of the timber volume felled during commercial harvesting operations in tropical forests remains in the forest as unutilized residues after the loggers have departed. Utilizing even a fraction of these residues would help extend the tropical forest resource and would reduce the area of forest that must be harvested in order to produce the approximately 235 million m3 of industrial roundwood which is removed each year from tropical forests. The purpose of the case study was to measure and analyze the productivity, recovery rate and sawn timber quality of a portable sawmill in order to increase possibilities for reducing waste and improving round timber usage in commercial logging operations in Papua New Guinea. Technical data concerning the sawmill were collected during a field test at the Kui logging operation, about 120 km south of Lae. Ten sample logs were sawn and the time consumed and recovery data were recorded. As a result of the study it was concluded that mobile sawmilling in PNG could be enhanced by combining it with commercial logging operations. The logging companies have a significant amount of reject logs that are not accepted to be exported and thus need to be processed in the forest or at the export harbour. These reject logs can be used as raw material for local mobile sawmillers. The stand in logged over areas also gives sawmillers a possibility to do salvage logging in them. The combination of logging operations and mobile sawmilling benefits the involvement of local people in the use of their own forest resources.

Type of Case
Printed publication (book, sourcebook, journal article…)

Publisher
FAO

Region
Asia Pacific

Biome
Tropical

Forest Type
All forest types (natural and planted)

Primary Designated Function
Production