Firewood cable yarding on steep terrain in alpine conditions

The utilization of coppice in the Alpine area is slowly but constantly raising, in order to satisfy the firewood requirements of the populations, both for individual and co-operative heating plants. To exploit also the coppice growing on steep terrain cable crane extraction should be envisaged. In order to evaluate the productivity and the operating costs of firewood cable yarding, a cable crane based on a sledge yarder has been tested in a beech coppice. The length of the line was 650 m and the average slope was about 60%. The full tree system, in which the stems were felled, only partially delimbed and yarded, was adopted (the stems being processed at the landing site). All the working operations (from survey to dismounting the line, including also manual felling) were considered and different times were measured. For each run the load was assessed in order to calculate the productivity of the system. The total and unit operating costs were estimated. Total and unit costs were compared to market costs: when firewood has to be cut only for inhabitants requirements, the value is too low and the only way to operate economically is using European grants