Future Forests Research Celebrates Research Achievements
Future Forests Research celebrates research achievements
Future Forests Research (FFR) has released its 2013 Annual Science Report, summarising six years of impressive research outputs.
Highlights include several new technologies for improving the safety and productivity of harvesting trees on steep terrain.
FFR Chief Executive, Russell Dale says that these technologies have been achieved through a better and more focused working relationship between scientists, forest managers and machinery developers.
“We now have machines and vision technologies that will enable us to take workers out of dangerous situations and create jobs that put more power in the hands of machine operators,” Dale explains.
Other programmes have delivered systems for predicting erosion hazards, measuring forest resources using LiDAR, and other tools for forest and resource managers to make best use of forestry in the landscape.
FFR Chairman, Phil Taylor says that FFR’s research programmes have been developed to help answer some of the hardest questions facing the industry today, so forestry can continue to deliver value to forest owners and to the nation.
FFR was established by the forest industry and Crown Research Institute Scion as a collaborative venture in 2007, primarily as a way of improving research focus and technology transfer.
“Research in itself will not improve the profitability and sustainability of our forests and forest lands – it is the application of this research that generates gain,” Taylor says.
“To this end FFR has focused a great deal of time and attention to delivering the outputs and organising research and technology transfer activities on a more commercial and professional basis. The fruits of our collective efforts are demonstrated in this report.”
View the 2013 Annual Science Report on www.ffr.co.nz or contact veronica.bennett@ffr.co.nz for a free copy.
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Photo available – ClimbMAX: The first commercial model of a harvesting machine designed specifically to work on steep country has been implemented in the past year through an FFR research programme.