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Forestry
in
Arendal
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Forestry in Arendal is mainly centered in the inland areas of the
municipality. Here we find the largest forests and most of the trees
that are cut come from this area. The productive forest area in
Arendal is 142 km², which is more than half of the total
municipality area.
Forest properties of more than 25 decars counts up to 548 in
Arendal. The average size of each of these units is 257 decar.
The primary forest production employs app. 20 men. This means
clearing the woods and forest cultivation. In addition 5 men are
occupied with transport, measuring and cutting. The forestry has an
average yearly value of app. 5.7 million NOK. Timber industry in
Arendal employs more than 80 people. The largest company is Rygene -
Smith & Thommesen.
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CUTTING AND
GROWTH.
The productive forest area in Arendal is 142 km², and makes up
more than half of the county’s area. The diagram to the right shows
the percentage of the different kinds of trees. Oak and aspen
dominates.
Average annual growth is 55,000 m³. In the last years the cutting
has been app. 21,500 m³.
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OWNERSHIP.
As shown in the diagram, most of the forest area is private
property. On these properties each owner decides how to run the
business.
In general the small properties are not well run. The main reason
for this is than the profit is not good enough compared
to the labour.
Other factors are availability, skills of production and the
condition of the woods. Another factor is that the society through
its politics and its demands, brings the conditions to run a
forestry for a living is increasingly difficult.
Larger properties are more profitable,
and here more effort is put into cutting, planting, road construction
and forest culturing.
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PRIVATE FOREST
ROADS.
The activity in the forestry is depending on a
good network of roads. To increase the competence of the forestry,
both economically, environmentally and quality
improvement, road construction in the forests has been a
priority matter.
The municipality of Arendal has one of the county’s most dense
road networks when all the public and private roads are included. At
the end of the 1980’s, a registration of the condition of the
private forest roads was accomplished. The registration now includes
151 forest roads of different lengths. Some of the roads were in
such a bad condition that they couldn’t be accepted for
lumber-delivery. The result was that timber from these areas became
more expensive to transport to the
"pick-up-places".
Under the registration the roads were classified
according to what kind of condition they were in. The roads that
were in an acceptable condition is placed in a group called
normal maintenance. Roads where the maintenance was
neglected are placed in a group called heavy maintenance
needed. Roads that under no circumstances keep the demands of a
certain standard for forest, is placed in the group
reconstruction needed.
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Condition of the
existing roads:
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No. of roads |
Length (km) |
| Acceptable |
102 |
83 |
| Not acceptable |
49 |
30 |
| Total |
151 |
113 |
Necessesary response:
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No. of roads |
Length (km) |
| Normal maintenance |
70 |
63 |
| Heavy maintenance
needed |
22 |
13 |
| Reconstruction
needed |
59 |
37 |
| Total |
151 |
113 |
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