I was just watching the television show How Do They Do It on the Science Channel. One of the chapters in episode six was about manufacturing milk cartons and the first part of that covered the harvesting of trees for pulp.
I've lived in several regions of the U.S. with heaving logging and seen clear cutting for paper pulp all over North America, but I'd never seen the actual process up close and personal like this.
They showed this dude operating what has to be one of the most menacing looking vehicles I've ever seen. I think it was the Rottne H-20 clear-felling harvester which was described as being able to "fell, strip, and saw a 100 foot tree in less than a minute." Oh, and all from a comfortable climate-controlled cab.
What a beast. It's got these massive jaws on the end of a long boom that grasp the tree and a chain saw that swings out and cuts the tree off at the base. Then it's fed through a pair of massive grinder wheels to strip the tree of its branches and feed it through the harvester jaw where it's sawed into 13 foot sections.
It totally reminded me of the Leveller in the animated movie, FernGully: The Last Rainforest. If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend it. What I didn't realize when I saw it back in the early '90s was that "the Leveller" was actually a real machine. It seemed to be so over the top in its menacing capabilities that I thought it was pure fiction.
Boy was I surprised to see that the thing is not only real, it's even ghastlier than its portrayal in FernGully. See the Leveller in action here and here. Then take a look at this YouTube video to see the real harvester in action.
Just wow.
Posted by: Christopher Blizzard | December 13, 2008 11:46 AM
I sensed a tone of "why are we doing this to our trees" in your post. I might be wrong about your underlying motive, but I want to share a fact anyway. I was watching How It Works on Discovery Channel, and the episode was about trees. One thing they said was that tree harvesters world wide plant 10 trees for every 1 they cut. They HAVE to, because there is SO much demand for trees in our world that if they didn't replace trees at that rate, they'd be out of business in a few years. Food for thought. :)
Posted by: Jake Munson | December 13, 2008 1:33 PM
Jake, I'm not naive about the industry. I'd just never seen the process up close and personal like that.
Blizzard, yeah. We're definitely monsters. I sure hope the universe is big enough and diverse enough that we won't have set its creative experimentation back too far.
- A
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | December 13, 2008 2:07 PM
You have not seen scary machines. The little one you describes kills whole trees. This one, however, kills whole landscapes: http://lh6.ggpht.com/_F5QY0K9UsjY/SAe5LnFAX5I/AAAAAAAAAyM/Z8dZV7RYWo4/s912/IMG_0795.JPG
Posted by: ckd | December 13, 2008 2:45 PM
I work in forest management for a lumber producer in Alberta Canada, and in Alberta we plant 2 to 3 seedlings for every tree that is cut down. Whatever number is planted the goal is to simply replace the forest. The only way to increase the volume of wood produced on a given piece of land is to manage the forest intensively, and there is much more to it than the number of seedlings planted. It just sounds good when they say 'harvesters plant 10 trees for every one that is cut down'. Forestry can be sustainable, but in my opinion there is still a lot of room for improvement. Machines like that make forests disappear very quickly.
Posted by: Chris | December 13, 2008 10:30 PM
ckd: 404 error.
Posted by: Stifu | December 14, 2008 1:08 AM
Cute animation about tree cutting machines http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcnyEmTn_yU
Posted by: T | December 14, 2008 2:35 AM
Posted by: ckd | December 14, 2008 10:28 AM
The Leveller actually seems to dwarf today's harvesters and logging equipment. The film showed that it could not only cut a tree from its base, but also trim and process the logs into boards like a sawmill does, but much faster. Today, you have to use, like, five different machines to do the same thing.
Could we one day create such a machine?
Posted by: Robert | January 31, 2009 12:40 AM
Makes you feel like a little bit of a monster, eh?