This research established the time consumption, work time structure, and productivity for primary processing in felling areas of coniferous trees felled with a chainsaw. Delimbing and partial cross-cutting were taken into consideration. The research was conducted in a mixed spruce and fir tree stand situated in the Carpathian Mountains. The team of workers consisted of a chainsaw operator and assistant with over 10 years of experience. The results indicated a total time of 536.32 s·m⁻³ (1145.26 s·tree⁻¹), work performance (including delays) of 6.716 m³·h⁻¹ (3.14 tree·h⁻¹), and work productivity (without delays) of 35.459 m³·h⁻¹ (16.58 tree·h⁻¹). The chainsaw productivity during tree cross-cutting was 82.29 cm²·s⁻¹. Delimbing accounted for 96.18% of the real work time, while cross-cutting accounted for 3.82%. The time consumption for delimbing and cross-cutting, as well as the work productivity and performance in the primary processing of coniferous trees in the felling area, were influenced by the breast height diameter, stem length, and tree volume, while the chainsaw productivity was influenced by the diameter of the cross-cut sections. The relationships between the aforementioned dependent and independent variables were determined by simple and linear multiple regression equations.

The conservation of biodiversity and forest ecosystems from the perspective of increasingly pronounced climate changes represents a priority objective for present and future society. In recent decades, alongside traditional conservation methods, innovative tools such as PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services) have been introduced to support biodiversity conservation. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of financial mechanisms for forest ecosystem conservation from the perspective of voluntary adoption by forest owners of additional conservation measures beyond those required by national environmental legislation. Through the conceptual literature review, 6069 articles were analyzed, which described the general context of the application of PES, the aims and objectives related to climate and environmental issues, the beneficiaries, as well as the legislative conditions, and the research direction in the last 7 years. The study aims to provide relevant information regarding the viability and potential impact of PES on achieving the goal of forest ecosystem conservation in Romania, during the period 2017–2023. We identified 904 cases involving 887 entities that have committed to the program for the voluntary adoption of additional measures. It has been stated that a PES approach can lead to increased efficiency in conservation actions. Following the temporal analysis of the number of applications, it was observed that in the first sessions there was a low number of applications, which means very high reluctance of the potential beneficiaries of PES, but once the first program was implemented, their interest increased. The study found a strong correlation between payments and the areas and number of plots under commitment, while there was a less strong correlation with the geographical region. Based on the data obtained, the potential impact of PES in Romania was evaluated at the social level, quantified in the number of applications submitted, and at the economic level, with the amount of money paid to applicants. The environmental impact was measured by analyzing the areas included in the subsidy mechanism and identifying the minimum 20% of the eligible areas, totally exempt from forestry interventions, which produce effects on forests, soil, water and environment.

Research Highlights: The felling of hung up trees is considered by literature in the field as an activity with a high injury risk. The low work productivity in the felling of hung up trees is wrongly cited by workers in order to justify various more or less safe work techniques. Background and objectives: The purpose of this paper was to determine work productivity in the felling of hung up trees when this activity has a well-defined structure with stages and specific activities that would allow workers to assess injury risk correctly. In addition, this paper aims to identify the moment when workers should give up the manual felling of hung up trees with a hand winch and start using specialized logging equipment. Materials and methods: The research was conducted in the Eastern Carpathians in a spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.) tree stand where clear cutting normally takes place. A single team of workers was used consisting of two chainsaw operators—a main one and a secondary one. This team had a high level of qualification and experience in the operations performed. For the felling of hung up trees, the technique based on rotating the tree around a pivot with a hand winch was used. Time was measured in seconds by using the continuous time study method. Results: The results indicated that work productivity decreases with the number of times the traction line needs to be repositioned. It decreases from 3.477 trees·h⁻¹ (in trees where no repositioning is necessary) to 1.402 trees·h⁻¹ (when the repositioning takes place twice). In trees that needed the repositioning of the traction line, safety rules were broken in the following ways: crossing over the tensioned cable of the traction line, the main chainsaw operator being positioned inside the triangle formed by the hung up trees and the anchorage points of the pulley and the hand winch as well as the operator being positioned very close to the hung up tree stem base while the latter is being tied. That is why, if the repositioning of the traction line is necessary, the question is—would it be better to give up the manual felling of hung up trees and start using specialized equipment? Conclusion: The felling of hung up trees must be regarded and understood, first and foremost, through the perspective of reducing injury risk and protecting workers. Thus, the work productivity of 3.477 trees·h⁻¹ can be considered acceptable for trees that need no extra repositioning of the traction line or when the time consumed does not go over 17 min·tree⁻¹.

In rural, isolated areas, sawmills are often equipped with one or more small-capacity hand-fed band saws. Even in this situation, the productivity of the band saw must be viewed through the factors that influence it, namely the characteristics of logs and the optimization of the stages and activities carried out. Therefore, time consumption, the structure of working time and the recovery rate in sawing logs into lumber provide important information for users. The structure of the sawing operation for a work team made up of an operator and an assistant was divided into six work stages. The sawing pattern used involves sawing the log up to approximately half of the diameter, then rolling the log with 180° and continuing the sawing, aiming to obtain lumber with a thickness of 40 and 50 mm from the central part of the log. The productivity was 2.45 m³·h⁻¹, the recovery rate was 70.84% and the working time real-use coefficient was 0.37. Research has highlighted the positive correlation between working time and the middle diameter of the logs (R² = 0.84). The feeding speed was also determined along with the quality of cuts, which was expressed by the thickness uniformity of the lumber and the presence of cutting teeth traces on the newly created surfaces.

Windthrow is a phenomenon that causes major changes to tree stand evolution by blowing down or breaking either isolated trees or entire tree stands, with a strong ecological, social and economic impact. Both scattered and large-scale windthrow occurred in spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) tree stands of Romania. They affected surfaces of various dimensions from harvestable forests. Such a phenomenon took place in the Curvature Carpathians in February 2020. Large-scale windthrow occurred in this area in 1995 as well, in the upper watershed of Bâsca river. Using the climate data from February 2020, this paper aims to identify the manner in which factors such as climate and site conditions together with tree stand characteristic and the anthropogenic factor impacted and influenced the occurrence of windthrow. The results showed that the intensity of this phenomenon had maximum effects when the wind coming from north/northeast reached the maximum speed of 32 m·s⁻¹. Pure spruce tree stands situated on slopes with an inclination between 16 and 30° were mainly affected. Their position was counter to the wind direction, at an altitude between 1300 and 1500 m, on cambisols and spodosols. The analysis and statistical interpretation of data in the case of scattered and large-scale windthrow from the two management units showed that the same factors studied influence the variation of windthrow intensity in a different manner, or sometimes they do not influence it at all or they can only account for a small part of this variation.