Review of portable sawmills in the Pacific: Identifying the factors for success

Introduction:
This project has had a slow start being first approved in 2003 under the Leadership of Dr Digby Race. While Dr Race's planning was excellent and we are still following his outline, his change of employment and other changes in personnel have meant that progress has been slower than we would have liked. There was also some difficulty in finding a time during which all participants could travel to the field to carry out the actual data collection phase.

To date however the most work intensive phases have been completed or are in progress. The quality of the investigations that have been done is high and a successful ending to the project is anticipated. The project is, so far, within budget.

The Aim of the Project:
Portable sawmills have a long history in many Pacific Island but their use has been overshadowed by the large scale logging operations that have taken place at the same time. The objective of using small scale milling technology has been to: allow owners of rights to community forests to utilise their own resource, for their own purposes, and in a way that would essentially maintain the resource for the long term. The small scale of operation was seen to be a method that would almost "of itself" solve many of the environmental and sustainability problems that had arisen as a result of industrial scale operations. As well it would allow the owners to determine the use of the resource they owned and to benefit directly from that use in a manner that would be directly beneficial to them - though not necessarily "profitable" in conventional business terms.

An unknown but probably substantial (several thousands) of portable sawmills have been purchased for use in the two countries selected for investigation; Papua and New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Many less are thought to be currently operating (some hundreds). This raises doubts about the "success" of the operations. As well, there have been reports that not every mill was operated in a sustainable manner, nor were the operations always satisfying community objectives.

The project has the aim of examining current operations, defining success and guiding the further progress of this technology.

To do this the project has brought together researchers and experts from: The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (Sairusi Bulai - Fiji), the Solomon Islands (Gorgon Konairamo and Terence Titiulu), Papua and New Guinea (Anda Akivi) and Australia (Hartmut Holzknecht, Ken Groves and Ryde James from the Australian National University and Digby Race from Charles Sturt University).

Achievements:
Planning Meeting
The group of experts met in Canberra in July 2005 to plan two visits to PNG and the SI to collect data and to draw up conclusions concerning their findings.

Discussions during the meeting confirmed that a considerable amount is known about the operations of portable sawmills although this may not be well documented. It seems clear that where portable sawmills are used to mill forest owned by a community, they can be very successful, especially where the product is used to construct houses for the owners or facilities for the whole community. In that case success will not be measured in financial terms and the sawmill may not be used for very long. However community objectives will be satisfied. Indeed this type of use may be amongst the better forms of use for these mills.

However the group was aware that the mills could be used in a manner similar to normal commercial operations and that the situation needed to be checked by field observation.

Overview of Status of Sawmills:
This was completed on time by Country Representatives and the SPC. It provides detailed background information for the Solomon Islands and Papua and New Guinea. This was essential to familiarise other members with the situation on the ground in those two countries. It dealt not only with community based mills, but also those run as commercial businesses. Even in the case of milling to provide house materials, it is usual to sell some wood to finance the hardware and fittings components of the building. It was therefore suggested that all sawmilling would have a commercial element to it.

As well, some operators of sawmills are entrepreneurs and operate entirely on a commercial basis. Sales can be for internal consumption, but where infrastructure allows, is increasingly for export. The relationship between forest resource owners, mill owners and timber traders (including exporters) is complex. In many cases these are the same people and conflicts do not arise. However there may be some conflicts of interest where they are different enterprises.

It was noted that the rules under which portable sawmills are allowed to operate in PNG and the SI, were designed on the assumption that the mill owner and forest owner were the same. The report drew attention to possible conflicts in the regulations and the way in which they are currently applied.

An assessment of previous reports on this subject has been prepared by Ken Groves and Hartmut Holzknecht. Coordination of the two sections of the report is nearing completion.

Field visit to PNG
In April 2006 most of the team visited PNG for two weeks. The first part was taken up with an "Inception Meeting" in Port Moresby to explain the purpose of the trip to officials of the PNG Forest Authority and others.

We also visited the provincial office in Lae and inspected mills in the environs of Port Moresby, Lae and the head of the Markham Valley near Goroka. We attended a one-day seminar of forest and mill owners in Lae. We met members of NGO's ( egVillage Development Trust and Habitat for Humanity) in Port Moresby, Lae and in the field.

Tentative conclusions:
A full report will be prepared regarding the visit but tentative conclusions (personal and subject to revision) can be made. The technology of sawing has been mastered sufficiently well in PNG for us to say that although it was not perfect, this is not where the major problems lie. Training schemes exist through the Timber Industry Training Centre in Lae, and also from mill suppliers, so that the operators that we observed were all capable of using their mills. Forest owners were producing timber by themselves, or with the aid of NGO's. Houses were being built from this timber and the aims of the people were being satisfied.

Faults which did exist with the sawing process largely concerned the way in which sawing impinged on other values such as forest management. Selection of trees to harvest was based entirely on convenience of location and of the marketability of the species. The degree of utilisation of felled trees could be poor especially when logs that were inconvenient to saw were just left. Utilisation was therefore lower that it could have been, both because of difficult logs and because only timber sizes which suited the market (house lots) were taken; the rest being wasted. Care of boards after sawing was often rudimentary, but the species used were of such high quality that the timber did not deteriorate.

It should be noted that all these faults were understandable. Possibly the easiest part of the process was the actual sawing. Transport of the mill to the fallen tree over steep terrain was difficult; as was carrying out the sawn produce. Many comments were made at meetings that using a portable sawmill was actually "back-breaking" work. Unfortunately, in PNG, humans still do manual work that in developed countries is left to machines.

However, the problem areas were in the social, economic and regulatory fields. Social cohesion varied amongst the people of PNG as it does anywhere. Some family groups were very well organised but other groupings could be less so and the use of portable sawmills could fail or be successful on those grounds alone.

In only the EU funded "Eco-Forestry" project did we see milling where the trees had been selected on proper silvicultural criteria. In that case, the stand of 10.5 ha had been competently surveyed, trees numbered, felling direction decided and volume assessed. Only trees making up 25% of assessed volume could be taken and there was a long, specified, return time. In all other cases, fellers took the next convenient tree. This was quite understandable as the people involved had no concept of sustainable forest management. Mills were located on the most convenient piece of level ground without regards to the consequences. (In one case over a dry watercourse where the sawdust and debris would be carried away in the next storm.) If any improvement could be made it would be to provide a cheap method of extraction so that more of the produce could be extracted and used. In one case buffaloes were being trained to bring out a small rubber tyred cart loaded with wood. This would greatly improve the degree of utilisation as the distance from mill to road was often long and the terrain difficult to traverse when carrying timber. Better extraction would result in better utilisation percentage and fewer trees being required to fulfil the quota for each house-lot.

In terms of judging success, the mills appeared to be more successful than had previously been supposed. However the criteria were not simply economic. If a mill had been bought so that the owners could saw enough timber to build a house, and this had happened, then the mill was regarded as a success and the fact that it was no longer used should not represent failure. The mill owners had often not acquired the mill to become sawmillers but rather to become house owners. Once the house had been built, then the project was regarded as successful; at least by the house owner. If the mill did not make a profit in terms of finance, then it could still be successful; particularly if the mill was used by another potential house-owner.

On the other hand PNG mill owners showed only a short-term awareness of finance. Often making too little allowance for longer-term effects such as costs of repairs or replacement of parts. Running costs such a fuel and sharpening of saws were also often neglected.

The legal regulations under which portable sawmills operate in PNG need to be revised. It was intended that the mills could operate completely without regulation if their cut was less than 500 cubic metres per year. The reasoning being that: the volume was too small to be a problem and the owners were cutting their own forest anyway. In fact, mill sponsors were using this quite high figure to purchase timber from many mill "owners" whom they had sponsored. It was said that one person had sponsored or owned 11 such mills and one we met admitted that he had bought one mill that was so profitable that he was going to buy another. It was suggested at the seminar held in Lae that the system would work better if a zero could be knocked off the figure; ie down to 50 metres cubed. It was also suggested that instead of a volume, permission to mill might be better defined by land area and that this value should vary by the type of ownership group, ie family, clan or larger community.

Portable sawmill owners were not organised and a Portable Sawmill Owners Association would be helpful; for advice when recasting the regulations and perhaps for some degree of self-regulation of activity.

The areas that needed more work were seen as: social organisation of owner groups, forest operations, especially how trees were chosen to be felled and the business arrangements and the regulations for small mill exemptions.

Whether these conclusions are confirmed as a result of the trip to the Solomon Islands has yet to be seen. However the group felt that we had learnt a great deal from the trip that would assist us to derive positive conclusion for the way forward.

Current Operations:
As this report is being written, the team is in the Solomon Islands carrying out a tour of mills and forest operations similar to that in PNG. This will be under the personal guidance of the Commissioner for Forests in that country, Gordon Konairamo. Despite a conflicting commitment in India, Mr Konairamo chose to visit PNG as member of our investigatory team. This is an indication of the importance with which he regards this project.

Organisation of the project:
An important point to note is that I retired as an employee of the ANU on 30 June 2006. However I will be an Emeritus Fellow at the ANU, and would be willing to continue my association with the project in that capacity.