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Episode 6: In difficult terrain
59 Plays3 days ago
Season 3 of Branching Out: The Forest Podcast explores how IUFRO scientists work across disciplines to address emerging issues through Task Forces. In the sixth episode, we focus on the IUFRO Task Force on Health, Safety and Social Dimensions of Forest Restoration Operations and will learn what it takes for restoration to be successful especially from a forest operations perspective.
Host Gerda Wolfrum from IUFRO Headquarters and co-host Sara Santiago from The Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment in the USA, and IUFRO Communications Working Party Deputy Coordinator, spoke with Task Force co-leads Nate Anderson, Research and Development, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, MT, and Jay Kim, Texas A&M University, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, USA.
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Transcript
Ambitious Goals in Forest Restoration Initiatives
00:00:03
Speaker
I think the biggest current issue is that the many global forest restoration initiatives have set very ambitious goals, often measured in millions of hectares restored.
00:00:15
Speaker
But they've paid much less attention to how the work will actually be carried out or what it means for the people who do the work.
Introduction to Branching Out Podcast
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello everyone, I'm your host Gerda Wolfram from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, IUFRO, the Global Network for Forest Science Collaboration. You're listening to the sixth episode of season three of Branching Out, the Forest Podcast.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's great to have you with us as we explore more forest science. In this season, we'll find out how scientists in IUFRO walk across disciplines to tackle emerging topics.
00:00:56
Speaker
This work takes place in our 13 task forces.
Dimensions of Forest Restoration Operations
00:01:00
Speaker
Last time, we talked about improving resilience of planted forests through stand complexity. And this time, we will learn about health, safety and social dimensions of forest restoration operations.
00:01:15
Speaker
And here is my co-host, Sarah Santiago from the Aifro Communications Working Party. Thanks for being a co-host for this episode, Sarah. Please introduce yourself. Thank you, Gerda. Hello, everyone. My name is Sarah Santiago.
00:01:30
Speaker
I serve as the assistant director of the Ford School at the Yale School of the Environment in the United States. My role in IUFRO is a deputy coordinator of the IUFRO Communications Working Party.
00:01:42
Speaker
Welcome to Ranking Out, Sarah, and a special welcome to our guests, Nate Anderson and Jay Kim, co-leads of the IUFIR task force that addresses health, safety and social dimensions of forest restoration operations.
00:01:56
Speaker
We're excited to have you with us for this podcast episode.
Interview with Nate Anderson: U.S. Forest Service and IUFRO
00:02:03
Speaker
Nate and Jay, I would like to invite you to introduce yourselves. If you don't mind, i will start with you, Nate. Can you share a bit about your work, your research focus, and your current roles in Ayufra?
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Gerda. really appreciate the podcast and thank you for facilitating. My name is Nate Anderson, and it's very nice to be with you today. i e am a research forester in the research and development branch of the U.S. Forest Service, and I'm based in Missoula, Montana, not far from Yellowstone National Park, which many of your listeners probably know.
00:02:35
Speaker
And I study forest operations, forest management and economics. And I study that in a pretty wide range of forest types around the world and a lot of different types of treatments, not just timber harvests, but also things like ecological restoration.
00:02:49
Speaker
And my role in UFRO is as coordinator of the research group 3.9, which is Sustainable Forest Operations for Forest Landscape Restoration. And I'm also Deputy Coordinator of the Task Force we're going to talk about today.
00:03:03
Speaker
And I started participating in IUFRO in 2010 as a postdoc when I first attended the World Congress in Seoul, Korea. Thank you, Nate. Welcome. ah Now I'd like to ask Jay, what is your academic background?
00:03:17
Speaker
Where do your main research interests lie?
Jae Kim on Workplace Safety in Forestry
00:03:20
Speaker
And how are you involved in IUFRO? Sure. ah Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Jae Kim. Thank you for having me here ah today. I'm very excited.
00:03:29
Speaker
I'm an associate professor in the Department of Environment and Occupational Health and the director of the Center for Worker Health at Texas A&M University based in College Station, Texas, so which is a little bit far from NAIT. But you know I was close one time to NAIT when I used to teach at Oregon State University.
00:03:48
Speaker
So my research focuses on developing and evaluating evidence-based interventions to improve workplace safety and health in various industries, including forestry.
00:03:59
Speaker
And I've been with IAU Pro ah since 2024, four and um I'm currently a coordinator of this working group with Nate for a few years now. and And even though my um tenure or history with IU Pro is a relatively shorter than Nate, but i my work with the Forestry Workers Safety and Health dated back in 2023. Thank twenty twenty three thank you Thank you. Thank you both. your Your diverse backgrounds truly embody the interdisciplinary spirit of the EUFRA task forces.
00:04:31
Speaker
But now let's dive right into the topic. And I'd like to ask you, Nate, why it is important to look at health, safety and social dimensions of forest restoration operations specifically?
Importance of Health, Safety, and Social Dimensions
00:04:43
Speaker
Can you give us the bigger picture? Yeah, I would love to. um We know countries around the world have pledged to restore a lot of forest and a lot of land in general. More than 200 million hectares of degraded lands have been pledged for restoration as part of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which many of your listeners will be familiar with, cuts of cut cuts across a lot of UFO workgroups.
00:05:08
Speaker
And you know in addition to that, a lot of countries have their own... um internal targets for restoration and even regional and local scale initiatives for restoration.
00:05:19
Speaker
And we know that restoration success in those cases requires a ah very deep understanding of the ecology of these systems. um But it also requires relevant knowledge and expertise of the human dimensions of restoration. And that's what we focus on. And our task force specifically is addressing this need from a forest operations perspective. So for for listeners who aren't familiar with that term, forest operations is an engineering discipline.
00:05:49
Speaker
It includes research and development of the technologies, methods, systems, practices, everything you need to get rest research get restoration done on the ground. And we we're bringing together a lot of expertise in that that field.
00:06:04
Speaker
um And specifically in a restoration context, this includes things like seed supply, nursery operations to produce seedlings, tree planting, which can be very intensive in these restoration operations, tending, harvesting, processing, and transporting both timber and non-timber forest products, and and plugging those things into you local, regional, and potentially global supply chains.
00:06:29
Speaker
We know that reducing environmental, reducing negative environmental impacts is a major component of forest operations research, but our group is focusing more on the economics and the ergonomics and the health and safety of restoration operations.
00:06:46
Speaker
Thank you, Nate, for that explanation. i appreciate you saying that restoration requires deep understanding of ecology, but not only that, it also requires a deep understanding of people and to have people to implement safe and effective processes to make sure that restoration actually takes hold and that it's actually successful.
00:07:06
Speaker
um Can I ask you, Jay, how do the occupational risks of restoration workers differ from the risks of other forest workers and why that might be?
Challenges in Restoration Work vs. Timber Harvesting
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I think Nate just so really will describe the characteristics of the restoration operation.
00:07:24
Speaker
The biggest difference is that the restoration work is still much more hands-on, meaning that ah the commercial timber harvesting, a lot of the work has become mechanized.
00:07:36
Speaker
However, the operations are often inside heavy, those are, you know, mechanized timber fouling, the operators often inside heavy equipment, which reduces many of the physical hazards.
00:07:48
Speaker
But in restoration, that's not often not an option. The workers are thinning dense forests, removing invasive species, ah planting trees, as Nick mentioned, or clearing debris, often involved with chainsaws and hands-on tools uses.
00:08:05
Speaker
that That means that they are much more exposed to injuries from manual work, and including chainsaw in accidents or musculoskeletal streams from repetitive lifting, carrying, or tasks in awkward postures.
00:08:19
Speaker
So the work environment is also a lot less predictable. and restoration sites often have dense vegetation, leaning trees, and large amounts of dead woods.
00:08:31
Speaker
Those conditions increase the risks of falling branches, unstable trees, and others struck by hazards that aren't as common in managed production forests.
00:08:42
Speaker
Another challenge is where these work takes place. So basically, the restoration projects often located on the steep slopes, in remove of watersheds, or in areas to be recovering from wildfires.
00:08:57
Speaker
that That increases the chances of slips, trips, and falls. And if somebody does get hurt, it can take much longer for emergency responders to reach those folks in the forestry operations.
00:09:11
Speaker
So those also restoration crews often face hazards that commercial logging crews may not encounter as often. so For example, prescribed burning exposes workers to smoke, heat stress, and burn risks.
00:09:27
Speaker
the Spending long hours working in dense vegetation also means more exposure to ticks, other effeminate wildlife, poisonous plants, and extreme weather.
00:09:39
Speaker
So these also work forces components. And many restoration projects relies on seasonal workers, contractors, or conservation crews. So experience level can vary, which is different from the commercial timber operation.
00:09:55
Speaker
That makes effective training, supervision, and proper use of PPEs especially important. The PPE is a personal protective equipment. So overall, while commercial forestry has become increasingly mechanized, forest restoration remains much more manual and often take place in more difficult situations environments.
00:10:17
Speaker
That's what makes it safety challenging ah ah distinct, in many cases even greater than those in commercial and conventional timber harvesting. Thank you, Jay. Thank you for highlighting these important differences between forest restoration operations and conventional timber harvesting operations.
00:10:37
Speaker
So, if I understand you correctly, they're largely due to the fact that restoration operations often happen in more difficult terrain. And this requires more manual, non-mechanized labor and smaller crews.
Economic and Community Impacts of Restoration
00:10:49
Speaker
In your task force, you do not only investigate the health and safety risks of workers, but also the social dimensions of restoration work. Can I ask you, Nate, what are these dimensions? What can forest restoration mean for a community?
00:11:04
Speaker
Can you perhaps give us examples from different parts of the world? Yeah, sure. That's that's a ah big part of what our task how force is doing is looking around the world and looking at different success stories and challenges that others have faced. And and as you just mentioned, yeah jay did a great job um covering some of the health and safety risks. And and we think about ah broadening that out to the communities where these workers are coming from and and um and looking at that. And I think ah we sometimes we use the term restoration economy. We know these communities
00:11:37
Speaker
pledges to to plant millions of trees and to restore ah millions of hectares of land um come with a lot of economic activity. And there's been a lot of good research around the world focused on how that plays out in local communities in both your positive ways and also challenging ways um in the way that perhaps those workers that Jay was talking about will be drawn from other industries like agriculture into those restoration projects and And when it comes to ecosystem restoration over large areas, there can be impacts on existing livelihoods.
00:12:12
Speaker
um Think about things like job opportunities from restoration programs. And a good example in the literature is one from Brazil that showed that restoration activities can generate about one job for every two hectares undergoing restoration.
00:12:27
Speaker
And that, you know, in Brazil, in this particular case study, um that could potentially create one to over 2 million direct jobs in restoring over 12 million hectares of land.
00:12:40
Speaker
But at the same time, we know that there's going to be regional variability in that impact. It's not going to be the same everywhere. We're going to have short-term employment opportunities versus long-term stable employment. Those are different when it comes to their impact on on communities. Trying to avoid a boom-bust cycle in employment in restoration operations is very important.
00:13:03
Speaker
And, um you know, as I mentioned, also, though we know there are going to be interactions with agriculture and other sector sectors of the economy. um Another example, um you know, we we look, people are also interested in how local people contribute directly to restoration operations on the ground and how um that interaction um occurs and how it might facilitate facilitate or hinder participation in local efforts that might be, you know, financed or organized by groups very far from where the work is being done.
00:13:38
Speaker
So an interesting example from the Philippines, um there was a kind of an overemphasis on seedling survival. We often use seedling survival as a metric for nurseries and for um for infield operations when we plant trees. And This particular study showed that an overemphasis on seedling survival as an operational metric and then tying that to funding available um can actually result in some inaccurate reporting and and actually delay improvements in seed and nursery operations, hampering seed and seedling supply.
00:14:12
Speaker
And we want to facilitate more seed and more seedlings in these places, not not reduce the supply. So this is a good example of how we can take a more holistic approach to operations tied to restoration on the ground that includes a broader understanding of the social and community impacts and make sure we get um better operations on the ground moving forward.
00:14:35
Speaker
Wow. So implementing restoration on the ground is a bit complicated, isn't it? And not a one size fits all regionally, nationally, internationally.
00:14:47
Speaker
Nate, the figure you shared of one to 2.25 million potential jobs over 12 million hectares is significant. But the reality, as you shared, is a little bit more nuanced than that. So thank you for painting a full picture of what restoration can look like.
Global Variation in Restoration Risks
00:15:05
Speaker
um So we've heard that forest restoration is a challenge encountered across the globe. I would like to know from you, Jay, which major differences we find in different parts of the world when it comes to health and safety risks.
00:15:19
Speaker
Can you give us two examples, perhaps from two different regions or settings? Yeah, sure. So restoration risks can look very different depending upon where in the world the work is being done.
00:15:32
Speaker
So, for example, the local environments and the type of restoration and available equipment and even the country's safety regulations all play an important role. So let's talk about like tropical regions in developing countries, for example.
00:15:48
Speaker
In part of East Asia, Latin America, or sub-Saharan Africa, the restoration often highly labor-intensive. Those workers may spend long days planting trees or clearing invasive vegetation by hand with very limited access to the machine.
00:16:06
Speaker
In some cases, the access to the personal protective equipment is the limited. So safety regulations may not be also enforced consistently.
00:16:17
Speaker
So many workers are also often seasonal or informal laborers with limited safety training and the training programs often lacking. So on top of that, they are dealing with hazards like a venomous snakes, beading insects, or diseases such as malaria. so And because of these projects are often in remote locations, ah getting emergency medical care or healthcare can be very difficult if someone is injured.
00:16:46
Speaker
So now let's compare that with the restoration work in the places like the Pacific Northwest and parts of Southern Europe or Australia. There, the focus is often on reducing wildfire risk through the forest of thinning and prescribing burning.
00:17:03
Speaker
The hazards are very different, and the workers are exposed to smoke, extreme heat, and chainsaw injuries and unstable fire-damaged trees that forestry workers often call dangerous trees or snacks.
00:17:19
Speaker
They can fall without warning. The good news is that these regions or countries generally have a strong occupational safety regulations and more formal training programs.
00:17:30
Speaker
But even with those protections, the workers remain inherently vulnerable to those hazards because the forest conditions themselves are not that predictable.
00:17:42
Speaker
So while the specific hazards vary from one region to another, the underlying reason is fairly is straightforward. In deb developing regions, the risks are often driven by limited resources, manual labor, and biological hazards Whereas in more developed, fire-prone regions, the emphasis shifted from the managing wildfire fuels and working safely in landscapes that had already been damaged by fire.
00:18:10
Speaker
So different settings, different hazards, but both require safety strategies that are often tailored to the local conditions. Thank you for these examples, Jay. Let's stay with health and safety risks.
Task Force Goals for Health and Safety Integration
00:18:24
Speaker
With what you just explained in mind, what needs to be done to improve safety? How does the task force want to contribute? And what does it want to have achieved by 2029? I think the biggest current issue is that the many global forest restoration initiatives have set very ambitious goals, often measured in millions of hectares restored.
00:18:47
Speaker
But they've paid much less attention to how the work will actually be carried out or what it means for the people who do the work. So we know a lot about where we want to restore the forest. We know much less about the health and safety challenges faced by these workers who make a restoration possible.
00:19:09
Speaker
So the conversation need is to shift from simply asking how many hectares do we restore to also asking can we restore forests in a way that that's safe, sustainable, and protect our workforces.
00:19:27
Speaker
So that's really where our task force hopes to make a difference. The first step is simply understanding why and what the forestry of work actually involves.
00:19:38
Speaker
And different projects require very different types of field operations. Everything from running nurseries to planting seedlings to thinning forests, transport materials, and managing prescribed burns.
00:19:52
Speaker
Since each of these activities has its own risk profile, we first need to understand and document what work is being done around the world. So once we have those information, the next step is to understand the risks.
00:20:08
Speaker
We want to evaluate the physical demand and health hazards and safety risks associated with each type of this restoration activity. that Right now, the kind of global evidence is surprisingly limited.
00:20:21
Speaker
And finally, we want to move beyond the simply id identify the problems. We want to develop practical solutions. And we that could include technologies like wearable sensors, exoskeletons, and robotics, and drones, some of which we have been doing with IOU pro members and the Oregon State ah University faculties.
00:20:45
Speaker
along with ah but you know I also would like to develop recommendations for training, workforce interventions, and policies that can help organizations improve worker safety.
00:20:57
Speaker
So looking ahead to the end of our current ah mandate in 2029, our goal is to leave behind more than just another prop report. We want to build a global evidence base that links the restoration activities with their health and safety risks.
00:21:14
Speaker
We also want to provide the practical, evidence-based recommendations that restoration organizations can actually use to reduce injuries and improving worker well-being.
00:21:25
Speaker
Ultimately, our vision is simple. The worker health and safety shouldn't be an afterthought once the restoration plans are ready in place. It should be considered from the very beginning, the right alongside ecological goals and restoration targets.
00:21:41
Speaker
If we are serious about the restoring forests for the long term, we also need to make sure that we are protecting the people who are doing the work. Thank you, Jay. So these are also very ambitious goals. You were talking about the ambitious goals of restoration efforts worldwide and just counting hectares and where can we restore.
00:21:59
Speaker
But I think ah it's it's more important to also take the people along on this journey. you know Everyone, those who are involved in the activity as workers, but also the communities who live from this restoration economy that we heard before,
00:22:14
Speaker
So the task force will fill important knowledge gaps there. It seems there are these gaps and it's ah important to fill them and collect the data and the evidence. And I think most importantly to position health and safety as a standard consideration that is integrated into restoration planning from the very beginning.
00:22:34
Speaker
So, Nate, can i ask you the same question, sort of only with a focus on the social aspects and the situation for communities?
Improving Restoration Practices Through Social Impact Assessments
00:22:43
Speaker
What does the task force want to achieve?
00:22:46
Speaker
And are there any specific task force activities that you would like to highlight? I think there's a nice connection here with the the risks that we see to individuals in the field doing these projects and doing this work. um A lot of times those are very acute. you know It's an injury that occurs in the workplace or it's ah an illness that's contracted from um an insect or something like that.
00:23:07
Speaker
and there are risks to communities as well and livelihoods and people's livelihoods and and certain the kind of economic fabric of these communities ah that are more abstract. And I think part of our our task force is also thinking about that risk with a broader ah but broader profile in terms of impact and and trying to facilitate ways that the impact can be positive and the negative impacts could be mitigated.
00:23:37
Speaker
And whether that's Whether the effort is more of a top-down government or donor-led initiative or more of a bottom-up local-led initiative, I think there's a lot to learn from successful projects. And so that's why the approach that Jay laid out a moment ago is so important, is is learning from successful projects on the ground, conducting an inventory of forest like landscape restoration operations, um planned and ongoing projects, and looking at their operational aspects. When were the the operational aspects considered?
00:24:12
Speaker
um Things like seed supply, nurseries, tree planting, tending, harvesting, processing, and logistics. When were those considered explicitly? um How are they proceeding? Where do we see successes and challenges? And I mentioned a couple examples earlier.
00:24:28
Speaker
And then rest assessing ah the restoration worker risks, just like Jay laid out. um that's ah That's a huge part of what our task force is doing. But also evaluating social dimensions and potential risks to the livelihoods and kind of the social fabric of the communities where these projects are taking place.
00:24:47
Speaker
which sometimes are very distant in space from those the folks who are leading the projects, especially on those top-down government or top-down donor-led projects. And so ah looking at those and then defining strategies that mitigate the risks, ah both for the individual workers and groups of workers in the field, but then also those communities.
00:25:08
Speaker
And um I would like to add here a very important part of our task force is disseminating and kind of diffusion of innovation here in terms of our results and those strategies and making sure that we use appropriate context-specific technologies and ah approaches disseminate the results of the task force. And that cuts across publications and opportunities for learning and training and making sure that the results of our work are accessible
00:25:39
Speaker
to people developing these projects, people conducting these projects, and people doing work on the ground. So to that end, we are um putting some resources into ah funding these activities, mostly through Oregon State University here in the United States, but there's a pretty broad ah coalition of people working on this task force.
00:26:00
Speaker
and hoping to do a lot more webinars and seminar series and also produce publications that are very practitioner oriented. So that will be ahead. So I want to make sure people know that that that's ah on the horizon and to keep an eye out for those kinds of opportunities.
00:26:17
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for further outlining the task force's aims and and especially also for drawing attention of the needs of funds, obviously, to um make these important activities happen.
Integrating Safety and Collaboration in Restoration
00:26:27
Speaker
um Now, before we wrap up, I would love to hear one concise key message from each of our guests and from my co-host. So let's start with Jay. Which key message would you like our listeners to remember from this conversation?
00:26:43
Speaker
Sure. Just see if I have to summarize the key takeaway, it's really this. like Global restoration efforts have done a great job in setting ambitious targets and goals for how much forest we want to restore.
00:26:56
Speaker
But they have paid the less and less attention to the people who actually do the work. So restoration often physically demanding and it's frequently done by hand in remote locations and under challenging work environment and conditions. And those risks are not the same everywhere as we talked about earlier.
00:27:17
Speaker
So despite these differences, we still don't have a... and really good understanding the global, ah how those specific restoration activities affects the work and health and safety across the globe.
00:27:30
Speaker
So this is a major knowledge gap. Our goal is to help fill that gap. Through a our IU Pro task force, we want to identify the types of restoration work being carried out around the world.
00:27:43
Speaker
understand the risks the workers face, and they develop practical solutions from new technologies and the better training to recommendations that can improve the policies and field practices.
00:27:57
Speaker
Ultimately, successful restoration isn't ah just about the number of hectares we restore. It's also about making sure that the people restoring these forests can do their job safely and sustainably.
00:28:11
Speaker
So if we can achieve both, we will have much stronger foundation for long-term restoration success. Great, Jay. Thank you for centering workers' safety and their well-being in the restoration process.
00:28:27
Speaker
Now let's ah turn to Nate. ah Please give us your takeaway from this conversation. Sure, yeah, thank you. um i I would just like like to say, to emphasize the importance of cooperation and collaboration to drive integration in this forest restoration space.
00:28:45
Speaker
ah We know that forest restoration cuts across many of the UFRO technical divisions and task forces. um This particular task force relates very heavily to engineering. Yes, ah you heard a lot of that today, but it also cuts across silviculture and ecology and economics and the social dimensions of forests. And when we think of forest restoration success, um many of us focus on whatever our particular research niche is, but we we look to to this collaboration to bring it all together and make sure that our restoration operations are successful ecologically, socially, and economically. And I think that's an important take home message. and And in order for us to reach our restoration goals and mitigate some of the potential risks and negative impacts, um it really takes a lot of collaboration. So in that spirit, I just want to reach out to if there are any listeners ah
00:29:39
Speaker
who are hearing this podcast now and saying, hey that's that's what I do. That's what I'm interested in. I'd like to get involved. Please reach out if you're interested in in contributing. As I mentioned, we're going to have webinar series and seminars and things like that online that should be um a good point to ah contribute if you'd like to contribute in that way and also publications and other activities. So please reach out if you're interested.
00:30:03
Speaker
Well, thank you. This is just such a strong call for collaboration and cooperation. And I think it's crucial for achieving these task forces and all the task forces and our Euphro's goal eventually. And of course, I would also like to hear from Sarah, also from the communicator's point of view.
00:30:19
Speaker
What is the most important lesson that you have learned from this conversation?
Human Elements in Restoration Communication
00:30:23
Speaker
Thank you, Gerda. My key takeaway is that when we talk about restoration, we are not just talking about the trees and the plants, but the actual on-the-ground work and the people who are conducting that work and how they are conducting that work.
00:30:38
Speaker
Therefore, I think to accurately communicate about restoration, we need to ah talk about and include site, species, and people. Thank you, Sarah. And thank you, Nathan Jay, for this enlightening talk on health, safety and social dimensions of forest restoration operations.
00:30:55
Speaker
And thank you to our listeners for joining us. Look out for our next Branching Out episode, where we will explore forest living labs for sustainable climate adaptation, the topic of another EUFRO task force.
00:31:08
Speaker
And if you want to know more about our EUFRO, follow us on social media or click on the show notes. And until next time, goodbye.