Forestry deaths remain high: how can we buck the trend?

WITH THE DEATHS OF THREE FORESTRY workers on the job, and another four in a road accident this year, the industry has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons….. and it needs to do better.

WorkSafe Forest Engagement Lead, Grant Duffy, says there remains too much of a focus in the sector on low level risk controls like training, rules and supervision.

“Instead, the sector should be focusing on engineering, technological, and other highlevel risk controls like elimination, substitution or isolation,” he says.

“Innovations such as mechanised felling are key to the future safety of workers and New Zealand is leading the world in the development of this technology.”

Neilsen research suggests some forestry sector beliefs about health and safety performance are not matched with actions, suggesting that the risk appetite remains too high.

Forest Industry Safety Council (FISC) National Safety Director, Fiona Ewing, adds that effective risk control is about more than just good safety practices. It is also affected by workplace culture and worker health.

“We already know how to control these risks – and it’s essential that these controls are in place on every site, every day, before people start work. If the controls aren’t in place, then don’t start work,” she says.

That’s why FISC’s harm reduction initiatives focus on culture, leadership and health, as well as the management of critical risks, she adds.

“Worker health is important because being fatigued or unwell puts people at a higher risk of having an accident. If you’re not fit for work, you shouldn’t be at work.

“Experience tells us that safety is also strongly influenced by workplace culture – particularly how involved workers are in health and safety matters.”

To help improve worker involvement in health and safety, FISC is engaging people to act as mentors and champions. Known as ‘Toroawhi’, these people will work with workers and forestry businesses to help them develop their own ways to get workers actively involved in improving health and safety.

Mr Duffy adds that the critical focus in this industry must be identification (and mitigation) of risk and a cross-sector commitment to active and effective health and safety.

CEO of the Forest Industry Contractors Association, Prue Younger, sums it up as a “holistic approach”.

She goes on to say: “It has become more concerning that the wellbeing of a person working in forestry can impact on their ability to react and work with safety at the forefront of their actions. So just being in a healthy space and having everything operating positively around you from the time you leave home until the time you get back to your family/ whanau each day is as critical as having your safety helmet on!

“Taking a holistic approach to health and safety is what we will be spending our 2020 year promoting and managing.”

“We have to remember that elimination by replacing man with machinery is expensive and the contractor is the one that is making that investment. It is important that the whole of the industry understands and takes responsibility for making our people safe.”

She adds that the fact that we have any fatalities is a concern for the industry and there is a significant amount of work going on within the industry around health and safety, along with technology replacing the need to have people on the slopes/outside.

Ms Ewing says the deaths are a tragedy for all concerned: “Our thoughts are with the whānau, friends and workmates of the victims.

“We don’t know the exact circumstances around these deaths. However, they do reflect the things mostly likely to cause fatalities in forestry.

“These are tree-felling, breaking out, driving vehicles, processing on the skid site and maintenance activities.”

Mr Duffy agrees, saying the critical risks in this industry have not changed, adding machinery interaction and travel to and from work to the list. He says with on-the-job deaths hovering around six per year for the past few years, “every part of the supply chain from the boardroom to the bushline must take greater responsibility for the risks they create or are able to influence if the progress over 2014/15 is to be sustained”.

“There has been an enormous amount of collective effort put in by all the participants in the forestry industry since 2013 to reduce the human toll. The numbers are not rising, but there is still more work to be done in this dangerous industry to reduce the risk to workers,” he says.

NZL