Forest Enterprises manages around 35,000 hectares of sustainable forest land in Gisborne, Wairarapa and Hawkes Bay on behalf of our retail investors and for other forest owners.
In 2021, we are on track to harvest over 1 million tonnes of logs.
The successful contractors are the safest
We engage local contractors to carry out specialist work in the forest, including the critical task of harvesting the trees.
“The successful contractors are also the safest”, says Forest Enterprises CEO Bert Hughes. “A safety culture is good for business”.
“At work, we need to manage risky behaviours and tasks with the goal of reducing harm.
“We cannot become complacent. There is always a chance of accidents occurring even in the best managed operations, so we stay watchful for risk and hazards.”
Forest Enterprises routinely reports Loss Time Injury Frequency rates at about a third of the industry average. More mechanised harvesting and fewer chainsaws and manual tasks helps.
“Our goal is to bring in engineered solutions and perform the task with safe equipment, rather than just add things like hi-viz to old school, labour-intensive practices.”
Walking the talk
Forests Enterprises has insisted its logging contractors are Safetree Contractor Certified. We were the first forest manager on the East Coast to have 100% of its contractors certified.
Safetree is an injury-prevention initiative of the Forest Industry Safety Council. It promotes high safety standards in forestry, upskills the sector, fosters a safety culture, and recognises contractors for consistently meeting or exceeding safety standards. Safetree also provides wellness support to forestry workers.
Becoming Safetree Certified is a significant undertaking for contractors and their staff. It involves training, documentation and reporting, and, importantly, demonstration of a safety-first culture in all aspects of the contractor’s business.
Our certified contractors
We’d like to acknowledge our Safetree Certified logging contractors:
Southern North Island – Brolly Logging, Bushline Forest Harvesting, GT Harvesting, Havard Logging, Horne Logging and SMH Logging
Gisborne – Speirs Logging, Raywood Contracting and Blackstump Logging
Read the May 2021 edition of Wood is Good, a forestry feature appearing monthly in the Wairarapa Times-Age.
