Farm Forestry New Zealand

The Forest Industry Safety Council Its relevance for farm foresters

Don Wallace, New Zealand Tree Grower August 2024.

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The New Zealand Forest Industry Safety Council Trust, which for the rest of this article will be abbreviated to FISC, was formally set up in 2016.The aim was to work –

• Together towards zero
• To partner with all stakeholders in the forestry industry to achieve safe outcomes for all forest industry workers through working collaboratively and implementing operational excellence.

The beginning

The formation came out of the Independent Forest Safety Review carried out in 2014.This review recommended that WorkSafe convene a forestry leadership action group made up of government, industry, workers and their representatives to oversee the forestry sector health and safety action plan to implement the recommendations in the final report. These included –

• A charter or pledge for industry leaders to commit to specific actions for change now and into the future and tools and resources to support the development of safety leadership capabilities
• Developing effective worker participation and representation schemes and a network of trained worker representatives for the forestry industry
• A review of the Approved code of practice for safety and health in forestry operations and regulations that set out the competency standards required for safety critical roles
• A timetable for developing an industry led contractor certification scheme and supporting systems to recognise those that meet health and safety and employment obligations
• An enhanced approach to data collection and evaluation and information sharing across the sector so that data and accident investigation information is shared and change can be evaluated.

In March 2016, the charter was signed by Ian Jackson on behalf of NZFFA.

The members of the council have changed over the years, but its make-up remains similar. Between six and 15 trustees are drawn from the NZFFA,WorkSafe, Accident Compensation Corporation, FIRST Union, NZ Forest Owners Association, Forestry Industry Contractors Association, worker representatives, iwi interests and an independent chair.

Independent organisation

Significant funding comes from the Forest Growers’ Levy Trust and others, but it is an independent organisation and a charitable trust, unlike the other levy committees on which the NZFFA is represented. It has its own trust deed and a board which has the responsibility of setting the direction.

The mission of the trust is to reduce the rates of injuries and deaths in the New Zealand forest plantation sector, with the ultimate goal of eliminating injuries and deaths in the sector.

The board is supported by a small secretariat led by Joe Akari, the current National Safety Director.The work programme of is handled by the Operations Advisory Group which ensures that the work is in the appropriate areas and carried out in a concise and co-ordinated manner.This group consists of forestry people working in the health and safety field and the representative for the NZFFA is professional forester Allan Laurie. Reporting to this group are the Technical Action Groups which are set up on a project basis and consist of those with particular expertise in the area being worked on.

What the Forest Industry Safety Council does

The aim is to improve health and safety in forestry.This includes promoting health and safety in the workplace using workplace visits, the SafeTree website, emails and social media.

• Developing codes of practice and best practice guides for improving the safety of forestry work
• Developing a certification system – the SafeTree certification scheme – for forestry contractors, workers and forest managers
• Working with external organisations such as WorkSafe to promote safe working practices

Some examples of the work that FISC has carried out in the recent past include –

• Producing the winch-assisted harvesting best practice guide to improve the safety of winch assisted harvesting on steep slopes
• Assisting WorkSafe with the revision of their Approved code of practice for health and safety in forest operations
• Developing new certification systems for forest managers and thinning workers.
• Visits by Toroawhi, Richard Stringfellow and Wade Brunt forestry crews and businesses to support worker wellbeing and greater worker involvement in health and safety decision-making. Unfortunately, withdrawal of funding meant that this very worthwhile initiative had to be discontinued.
• Testing the use of TikTok to try to get health and safety information for hard to reach forestry workers
• Sharing safety alerts on topics such as chain saw boots, log truck loading and road hazards, to help forestry workers learn from experience of others in health and safety
• Producing a video on tree-jacking which is an innovative way to fell trees in difficult places such as along fence lines.
• Developing a thinning for value best practice guide, currently in draft, to help contractors to improve safety, and to increase the value of the harvest by thinning for value
• Investigating radio channels to be used to communicate with helicopters.

Relevance to farm foresters

It is clear that FISC is doing a lot to try and improve safety in forestry operations. However, what relevance do these initiatives have for small-scale forest owners?

First, it is a legal requirement for anybody carrying out forestry operations for profit, called a person conducting a business undertaking, to do all that they can to ensure the safety of the people carrying out these operations.This is irrespective of whether they are involved directly or indirectly.

As an example, it is your responsibility to ensure that those you are employing, either directly or indirectly such as via a forest management company, have the appropriate skills and equipment to safely carry out the job and that they are aware of all the hazards they might face on your property. It is not expected that you, as a part-time forester, will have the skills or knowledge to carry out a full audit of your contractor. However, you are expected to satisfy yourself that the job can be carried out in a safe manner.

Questions you might need to ask include –

• What is the safety plan for the work?
• Is the contractor and in the future, the manager, SafeTree certified?
• Have all the neighbours been advised of the work?
• How will access to the site be controlled?

Only after you have satisfactory answers to questions such as these will you have fulfilled your legal obligations.

Improving your own health and safety

Many of the FISC initiatives are aimed at those who have a full-time job in forestry, but many of them are equally applicable to the part-time forester. Examples include safe felling techniques, advice on personal protective equipment, how to maximise value when thinning, dealing with wind-thrown trees and managing a small-scale harvest,

To make it easy to access these resources, an area of the SafeTree website is dedicated to small-scale foresters. Click resources on the home page then select small-scale forestry in the filter box on the right of the resources page. As you will see there are nearly 100 entries and many will be of interest and value to NZFFA members no matter what their level of skill.