Jarno is a subcontractor of Metsä Group and harvests the trees of owner-members with his harvester. He works in close cooperation with Metsä Group’s operations supervisor. However, he can influence his schedules and organisation of work, which brings a sense of freedom to everything. Many of us would probably appreciate an office in the forest. Jarno has also found the field to suit him well.
“I’ve been active in the forest sector since comprehensive school. I was drawn to it as a kid, already.”
A job well done is a good reference for a harvesting entrepreneur
You can tell a good harvesting operator from the results of their work. The fewer traces you leave in the forest, the better it speaks of you as a harvesting entrepreneur.
“Good harvesting work does not leave depressions in the forest floor. All the right trees are removed and all the right ones are left in place,” Jarno explains.
To achieve the best possible harvesting results, you need to be in the right place at the right time, since the humidity of soil and snow conditions make a big difference to the kind of tracks a harvester makes. It is also up to the operator’s skills and attentiveness whether dents are made in the trees left standing. In addition to the harvesting entrepreneur’s own quality control, Metsä Group also controls the quality of harvesting.
Before the harvester arrives on the felling site, it is important to take care of preliminary clearing. Uncleared undergrowth obstructs visibility and slows down work. A dense thicket also increases the risk of breakage of the harvester’s chains.
Biodiversity is also taken into account in felling
Biodiversity is an important part of commercial forest management. Jarno’s work is steered by different forest certificates, but a professional operator knows how to protect nature sites in any case.
“Not all the nature sites are marked in advance, but a good operator identifies them without any markings.
According to Juho Jokimies, Metsä Group’s operations supervisor, high biodiversity stumps are left on the felling sites these days to increase the amount of decaying wood important to microbes and birds.
In addition to having a keen eye, a harvesting operator must be able to communicate smoothly with forest owners and the operations supervisor. Juho and Jarno have always found it easy to cooperate. Metsä Group does its best to offer its contractors work during slower periods, but ultimately it is the global market that determines when Finnish harvesting operators are busy at work.
“Fluctuation is an inherent feature of the forest sector,” says Jarno Iso-Junno pragmatically.