English | French | Home

Findings: Road Construction

Findings: Road Construction Field observations suggest that roading standards are uniformly poor across all logging areas. Expediency, rather than permanency, appears to be the primary feature of major road construction and maintenance within logging areas. There is little evidence that the roads have been constructed with anything further in mind than rapid access to harvestable stands of forest and withdrawal at the earliest possible opportunity. Indeed, in some areas roads were deteriorating rapidly whilst logging operations were still going on.

None of the roads surveyed remain passable and all are the source of substantial sediment inputs into streams and ultimately nearby estuarine and marine areas. Whilst it is unlikely that significant regrowth will occur on the roads within the time frame of typical return logging cycles (25-40 years), new roads will have to be constructed for any subsequent harvests. Meanwhile, the poorly constructed roads and environs will continue to provide artificial environmental inputs in the form of excessive sediment loads and provide substrates for the proliferation of successional retardants such as Merremia peltata.

The long term prognosis for these forest access ways is bleak and their contribution to the local communities can be judged by the villagers obvious disdain for their future viability. Existing rampant growth of Merremia peltata after only a few months combined with the condition of the logged over forests has seriously limited the usefulness of the roads even for hunting access into the forest.

Several aspects of the clauses relating to road maintenance are of concern, but one issue is most notably incompatible with the state of the roads upon completion of the logging operations. The Standard Logging Agreement (SLA) states that:

"Prior to the execution of the Completion Certificate the Company shall carry out thorough maintenance of all the main roads in the completed area and where possible leave stock piles of gravel at strategic points for any repairs that may be necessary within the next 5-10 years."

(SLA, Clause 12)

The provision of stock piles of gravel was neither observed in the study area nor would their presence in the absence of heavy construction machinery assist with the repair of the roads.

The Code of Practice (Page 29) specifies minimum compacted gravel depth of 15cms, yet only thin veneers of gravel were present in some areas. This may have partially accounted for sheet erosion of the road surface and erosive collapse of road verges along most roads traversed during field surveys.

Common ITC practice is to push cleared debris down slope from the constructed road surface. Where roads approach waterways (both streams and rivers), this debris has been observed to lie across streams greater than 10 m in width in places. Road profiles and drains seldom resemble those illustrated in the Code of Practice.

Also contrary to the Code of Practice, many roads were constructed on fill which smothered minor waterways with no associated culvert construction. The subsequent blockages of the culverts which were constructed and collapse of road verges (both up and down slope of the road surface) lead to uniform sedimentation of all drainage lines which were traversed by main roads and snig tracks.

Road linkages to villages in the area investigated appear to have taken a subservient role to access to actual harvest areas. In some instances, connecting roads have not been constructed. This is presumably due to a lack of commercially viable forest in the intervening areas. Where adjacent landholdings (LR's) meet along a natural boundary such as a river, roads are constructed to either river bank, but no intervening bridges were placed to enable connection between settlements. Coastal communities will therefore remain reliant upon water based transport, even if the logging roads remained serviceable following the completion of extraction of logs from the forest.