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Pine Plantaions
Pine plantaions are my pet hate for building singletrack, with the main reason being that they will be destroyed by logging operations.
I have been told you cant get funding to build in pine plantations, because they are not permemant trails. Why fund a non permenant trail???
Downhillers like em due the the soil type. So what can be done, especially when there is some kickarse locations like Dwelli, Welli Mills, Nannup?
All these locations are perfect gravity riding, like flow trails and downhill.
The Forest Products Commission FPC is one department I have not had much experience with. But its one that we may have to deal with in order to share land use of recreation and plantation harvesting.
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Permalink Reply by John Wallace on -
After talking to Dafydd Davies from Wales who has worked extensively in the mtb trail industry and delt with building permenmant trails in working plantations, here is some of his points.
* Do not build lots of switchback through a plot.
* Build the trail with a full bench, they get much less damage.
* Build northshore structures that are removable/portable.
* Try and use natural features that mimic tabletops, drops, wall rides ect.
* Every plot has a detailed harvesting plan, which includes working around the trails with the least damage. eg the harvesting machine for thinning will only drive down certain rows. Building the trail down the rows not being driven in.. the trails will not suffer damage from the wheels.. any damage to them will only be superficial ie log landing on it.
* He quoted that harvesting around trails was thought to be 25% extra cost but in reality it was less than 1% extra cost
* The main thing he pointed out, is that there is very detailed plan for harvesting every plot and that the mtb trails were part of that harvesting plan.
After talking to our local DEC contact, these are some of the issues he has found out about plantaions from FPC.
* one of their major concerns seems to be the increased activity in the plantations results in:
* Increased impact on roads (through increased traffic)
* Soil damage (traffic travelling on roads at most prone times for impact)
* Erosion
* Increased maintenance
* They would be happy if there could be funding supplied to help maintain these roads.
* The roads are not built for all year use and they only use them every 10 years or so depends on harvesting operations. When they go to use them they are up for major repairs and cost, they think the user should contribute to this???
* Other concerns are nails etc into trees (big concern at Murray Pltn), damage to current stock (pruning/tree removal), drought deaths posing a risk issue.
* I think our best way around is to design the trails to minimize the use of roads for transport. We should then nominate travel routes and ensure all users of these trails use only these routes. We can then arrange to monitor and maintain these, this would greatly help our cause.
* The other issue is the other users that frequent the plantations, we need to look at how we can help manage these and reduce the impact. This will greatly help our cause for support by other land/forest managers.
Talking to these people(Dafyd DEC, FPC) helps us understand where we need to start to be able to move forward.
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