Forest innovators attract international audience
This week in Rotorua the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) is hosting the largest ever gathering of
international forest contractors, forest managers as well as machinery and service suppliers to the industry. The
HarvestTECH 2105 international conference is focused on logging machinery designed for steep slope forest harvesting and
has attracted over 400 delegates to Rotorua, the heart of forestry.
FIEA director Brent Apthorp says, “We’ve targeted forest contractors and managers from around the world . The response
has been fantastic. They are here to see how our innovative local contractors have come up with novel solutions for safe
and productive harvesting machines.”
Large groups of senior forestry leaders and contractor company owners are now arriving from Chile, Australia, USA and
Canada. Every one of the major forest companies in Australasia and South America has people coming here to learn more.
Apthorp added “Over the past few years our New Zealand forest contractors tackled problems no one else was prepared to.
They’ve made mechanised forest harvesting safe on a range of steep slopes by tethering the machines. Now they’ve done
it, the world has arrived here on our doorstep to see how they’ve cracked it.”
Every one of the major manufacturers of forestry equipment is sending senior engineers and top managers from USA and
Canada to see the leading edge here in Rotorua. The most innovative contractors have tackled both safety and
productivity at the same time. They did it to solve their own local terrain issues but now it looks set to spread around
the world.
Two local contractor-developed harvesting equipment systems have become so popular they’re now getting export orders.
This Kiwi-developed technology is set to spread around the world where people have the same steep slope challenges. It
takes intensive training alongside the technology for it to succeed in new terrain. The remarkable change is that
tree-felling has become much safer thanks to the new technologies that have been put in place.
HarvestTECH 2015 is a two-day technology conference for practical loggers and machinery developers. The large
international audience will be seeing not just Kiwi innovations but other technologies being developed in Europe, North
America and places like Chile. The Forest Industry Engineering Association is just one of the many forest and wood
product associations and conferences run by local company Innovatek Limited. Brent Apthorp and John Stulen are
recognised conference innovators in the forest industries. The company started in Rotorua and now has offices in Dunedin
and Melbourne.
Innovatek director John Stulen, who also represents the Forest Industry Contractors Association (FICA) says many of his
members have been leaders in these steep slope logging technologies. Underlying these innovations has been a change of
heart by the big forest management companies – in fact Hancock Forest Management set a challenge to their contractors
and these innovations have been a big part of their response.
“People outside of forestry are in for a surprise. Innovative forest contractors are leading these new developments.”
He says, “This conference proves we’ve got some of the most innovative and leading edge thinkers and developers of
technology right here in our own forests.”
“The HarvestTECH conference is a great networking opportunity for everyone across the forest sector, says Stulen, “For
this conference, Brent has been able to get the innovators of these new harvesting systems to share their new knowledge.
That’s drawn a huge response – far greater than we expected.”
“But we said the same thing when we hosted the Forest Industry Safety Summit in March this year and back in November
2013 when we tackled safety and steep slope logging the first time in a combined conference.”
For full conference details CHECK OUT http://harvesttech.events
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