Administered by Sustainable Forestry Initiative™ of Pennsylvania State Implementation Committee

Voluntary Logger Certification Program – The Sustainable Forestry Initiative Program in Pennsylvania has developed a comprehensive training program for loggers. A variety of courses cover topics from basic compliance with local, state and federal laws, to in-depth discourses on business management, wildlife, forest management & ecology, BMP's for erosion control, public relations, and others. All of the courses are aimed at providing loggers with the skills to do their jobs more safely, productively, profitably, and in an environmentally sensitive manner. Here is a brief description of the courses we currently offer. Unless otherwise stated, all courses are full day.

Core Level Training

The core level courses are intended to provide everyone in the industry with a basic level of knowledge from which to expand their professional development with instruction in specific areas. The use of facilitators, rather than teachers, allows participants to learn from each other's experience and results in a powerful learning experience.

Logging Safety: The focus of this course is on recognizing and neutralizing hazards that workers meet every day in the woods. It is comprised of four modules: chainsaw safety, equipment safety, truck safety and an overview of OSHA regulations applicable to logging.

Environmental Logging: This course provides participants with the necessary training to prepare the Erosion &Sediment Pollution Control Plan required by Chapter 102. Conservation district personnel have been extremely helpful, providing background & instruction about Pennsylvania's Clean Streams Laws. This course also covers various permits a logger may need when working near streams or wetlands, exceptional value waters, harvesting aesthetics, job layout and planning.

First Aid/CPR: Because timber harvesting is defined by OSHA as a hazardous occupation, everyone who works in the woods is required to take a Red Cross (or equivalent) course in First Aid & CPR.

Continuing Education Courses

The Continuing Education courses are intended to give instruction and provide information for loggers and others, in specific areas. The goal is to provide participants with the resources to pursue their professional development. Implementation of the practices and tools taught will lead to better stewardship of our forests. Improved practices will result in improved public perceptions about forestry, harvesting, and the forest products industry. Continuing education is required for re-certification annually.

Advanced Environmental Logging: This course covers a brief review of sections 102 & 105 of Pennsylvania's Clean Streams Laws, job planning & layout, job retirement, and Best Management Practices. During a field exercise, participants locate placement of erosion control measures, road systems and landings. When possible, a dozer is present on the job to demonstrate actual construction of roads & erosion control measures. Software applications, such as Arcview, topographic maps on CD-ROM, and digitized soil maps which can assist with plan preparation are discussed.

Sustainable Forestry 1: An introduction to forest ecology & silviculture, why loggers are important and how their actions affect the forests they work in.

Sustainable Forestry 2: Building on the knowledge from Sustainable Forestry 1, participants learn to collect information about the forest to determine the sustainability of a proposed harvest. Sections on sampling theory and data evaluation, combined with exercises on regeneration assessment and overstory assessment provide the evidence to present landowners with a compelling case for sustainable harvesting.

Wildlife: The importance of determining landowner objectives is stressed. This course uses research from a cooperative research project between the PA Audubon Society and Proctor & Gamble, to provide participants information about groups of plants and animals that will be affected by various intensities of harvesting. 

Business Management: Profitability of logging businesses is one key to implementing sustainable practices. Participants are introduced to the preparation of business plans, documents used for financial analysis, key people, sources of assistance, employee management and other components of running a successful business.

OSHA Plans: This 1/2 day course provides participants with the required plans for Hearing Conservation, Hazard Communication, Control of Hazardous Energy Sources, and Blood-Borne Pathogens as required by OSHA to be in compliance with Federal Law.

First Aid Re-certification: This 1/2 day course keeps participant's First Aid & CPR training up-to-date, as required by OSHA.

Game of Logging: Courses cover chainsaw safety and production techniques, and are taught in 5 levels. Courses include instruction on directional felling, saw maintenance, use of wedges, and felling difficult trees. Level 5 is a review for individuals who took their initial training more than 3 years ago.

Log Grading & Bucking: This course provides loggers with an opportunity to learn how to optimize the value of the logs they buck from the trees they harvest. It also provides an opportunity for the host mill to communicate their log needs, and for procurement personnel and loggers to better understand each other.

Estimating Standing Timber Volume: (NELA) The basics of sampling and tree measurements are introduced. Information is presented on determining percent merchantability, how to collect data from variable plots, and how to calculate merchantable volumes from the data that has been collected.

Logging Costs: (NELA) Every logger needs to know what it costs them to produce products for various markets. This course provides loggers with instruction about how to calculate costs of production for the various forest products they manufacture.

Buying Standing Timber: (NELA) Taught by a successful timber buyer; presents and explains ethical strategies for sealing purchases of standing timber

Continuing Education Courses

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Call the SFI of PA to register and for confirmation of exact location, (814) 867-9299 or (888) 734-9366.

Schedule is subject to change, courses with less than 15 participants may not be held. More courses are added

each month. SFI of PA Continuing Education credit given to courses with telephone numbers, please send or

fax (814) 867-9188 proof of attendance to the SFI of PA office. SAF CFE credit available for most courses.


 

Contact Person: Ken Manno, SFI of PA, 315 So. Allen St., Ste. 418, State College, PA 16801, 814/867-9299, Email: sfi@penn.com Website: www.sfiofpa.org 

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