SHAW’S WIRE ROPES IRON TEST
Two-staging wood from a cramped landing to a load-out site can be an inefficient and time-consuming process if you don’t take the right options. But not the way Rosewarne Cable Loggers is doing it on the Pouto Peninsula, south of Dargaville. They’re using a Bell ‘super forwarder’ to scoot up to 30 tonnes of logs from as far away as one kilometre to a dedicated loading facility at speeds of up to 50km/h on good tracks.
ROTORUA STARTED THE BALLING ROLLING in this part of the world with its ‘wood first’ policy, but now Australia is overtaking us with a new ‘wood encouragement’ scheme.
The ‘wood first’ policy introduced by the Rotorua Lakes Council early in 2015, made it a pioneer for the promotion of wood in buildings in this country and across the whole of Australasia. Basically, it required that the council looked at using wood as a preferred choice for any of its own developments and installations, and also encouraged others in its area to do the same.
This resulted in the recently completed ACC building in Rotorua becoming the first all-new commercial development in Rotorua to be built largely with timber.
Mayor, Stevie Chadwick says the council felt it was important to show support to the forestry industry that is at the heart of the Bay of Plenty region.
Last month, the ForestWood 2018 conference in Wellington heard that Australia is following Rotorua’s lead.
The Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, an Australian not-for-profit organisation, has established a Make It Wood programme that seeks to encourage use of responsibly sourced timber. Recently, the programme was extended to include a ‘wood encouragement’ policy targeting local authorities around Australia.
David Rowlinson, Manager of the Make It Wood programme, told the conference that the aim of this newest initiative is to encourage responsibly sourced wood as the preferred structural material in all public newbuilds and refurbishments.
Tasmania became the first state government in Australia to adopt a statewide Wood Encouragement Policy (WEP). In addition, there are two local government authorities and fifteen local councils that have also adopted a WEP.
Mr Rowlinson says: “It is not intended to be a draconian, all-encompassing dictum, but rather seeks to ensure that wood is at least considered as the primary structural component in buildings.”
Meanwhile, to support it’s promotion of natural material, such as wood, the Make It Wood programme has also conducted research into some of the healthy properties of using wood inside buildings.
New, world-first research just released in Australia supports the notion that people working in wooden building environments have higher levels of wellbeing and take fewer sick days; wood is correlated with higher levels of productivity; and people in wooden workplaces also tend to be more confident and optimistic.
NZL