Year of publication 2011

Within the past 20 years there have been many attempts to increase understanding for the situation of forestry contractors. Based on this recent work and experience, the idea has evolved to draw up a guide to good practice in contract labour in forestry, which outlines a wide variety of examples of good practice. These are intended to foster the sustainable and viable development of contracting enterprises in forestry for the present and the future. Contract labour will be the most important source for carrying out all those operations in forestry necessary to achieve sustainable forest management and timber utilization.These guidelines will mainly focus on contract labour in the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Europe and North America. However, it is felt that this guide is sufficiently generic to be useful for the establishment of good practices in any country, when it comes to outsourcing of labour from direct employed workforce to contractors, as is the case in most parts of the world. Although th e situation and available information differ between the countries, there is a general trend indicating that the evolvement of contractors in the management of the world?s forests will continue to increase.