How and How Much, Do Harvesting Activities Affect Forest Soil, Regeneration and Stands?

Abstract

Purpose of Review: Lowering the impact of forest utilisation on the forest environment is a part of the improvement in sustainable forest management. As part of forest utilisation, timber harvesting can also cause environmental implications. The main impact of forest operations is on the soil, on regeneration and on the residual stand. The aim of the present review was to identify the state of the art in forest utilisation, identifying how and how much forest operations affect forest soil, regeneration and the remaining stand. Particular attention was paid to the level of impact and potential to limit this. Recent Findings: There are a large number of publications tackling forest harvesting, but most of them do not give a comprehensive framework and they mainly focus on one or very few aspects of forest damage. In order to improve general knowledge of the impact of forest operations, it was proposed that the scope of recent findings should be examined and a compilation of the available results from different regions should be presented in one paper. Summary: It was found that the least impactful machine-based forest operations were harvester–forwarder technologies, while a larger scale of damage could be expected from ground-based extraction systems (skidders) and cable yarders. Animal power, if applicable, tended to be very neutral to the forest environment. A decrease in damage is possible by optimising skid trail and strip road planning, careful completion of forest operations and training for operators. The existence of legal documents controlling post-harvesting stand damage are rare and have been implemented in only two countries; there is no post-harvesting control on soil damage and natural regeneration.