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Neotropical Forest Harvesting Impact in Misiones, Argentina: Soil Compaction and Traffic Intensity

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  025009,  2002 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.9223) @2002
Authors:   P. Mac Donagh, Juan Garibaldi, Liliana Rivero, Roberto Fernández, Shigeo Kobayashi
Keywords:   Forest Harvesting, Harvesting Impact, Soil Compaction, Tropical Ecosystems

In the Guarani preservation area 100 hectares have been harvest with the objective of evaluate the impact in natural neotropical forest. Two treatments were applied: Commercial logging and Reduce Impact Logging. In the first one the logging contractor do the job in the traditional way. In the second one forest management was applied to choose the trees, and the skidding trials and landings were planned. Six commercial plots, nine reduce impact logging, and three control plots, were randomized lay out in the total area. Each plot has 1 hectare (100 m by 100 m), surrounded by 50 m of boundary, totally four hectares. Before harvesting were measure soil physical parameters such as soil density and penetration resistance, also it were done a forest characterization. During June and July 1999 the entire area has been harvested. The trees were cut with chainsaw, and logged with rubber tire skidder of 10 tons and 140 cv power engine. Also the skidder load the truck in the landing area. After harvesting all the previous parameters were measured again, and traffic intensity in each plot was calculated. Then, all the measures were repeated in 2000 and in 2001. The conclusions were that harvesting neotropical forest produce soil compaction, and indeed is related to traffic intensity. It is important to control the skidder traffic intensity, and to increase the number of logs logged in each pass. The RIL presents a reduction in terms of area affected and load over the soil for the traffic intensities.

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