Forest utilization and comparison between traditional lumber conversion methods and a portable sawmill in Arero

The study was carried out in Arero Juniper fores, Borena zone. Semi-structured and open-ended questionnaire together with personal observations were used to collect data on utilization of Arero forest. The traditional pitsawing and axe hewing were compared with a portable sawmill. Recovery percentage was used as a yardstick to investigate the variation in output form each technique.Thirty two different species were recorded for their specific and multipurpose uses by local people. The main species, however, was Juniperus procera. the impacting communities get a number of different services from Arero forest, as was shown by the questionnaire responses and by personal interviews. Fire, bark stripping, tree wounding, forest grazing and wasteful utilization of forest products are the major problems that require corrective measures. Todate, however, there is no commercial logging and the forest is mainly used for household consumption. This is due to the inaccessibility of Arero forest and distance from the main road. Axe is the sole tool to convert trees into lumber, construction material, firewood and furniture.To evaluate the variation in recovery percentage, samples of Juniperus procera trees with diameter ranging from 10 to 40 cm were taken. Measurements of logs were recorded under bark and volume was calculated using Smalian formula. Each log was processed and lumber produced by each technique was calculated for recovery percentage. The results were based on diameter class and the average recovery percentage for axe, pitsawing and Logosol were 22.2%. 25.4% and 42.2% respectively. The results were compared with a soft were called Saw Decision Maker (SDM) for each technique of conversion. The result indicated that the theoretical recovery percentage as per the software was 49.1%, 49.5% and 47.5% for axe pitsawing and Logosol respectively. The results of this part of the study on comparing traditional techniques with a portable sawmill implies that axe and pitsawing methods are more wasteful as compared to the portable sawmill. However, as was expected axe was shown to be the most wasteful means of converting trees into lumber especially when whole tree is considered. In this case the recovery for axe was 7.6% where as pitsawing and Logosol had 29.7% and 34.1% respectively. With limited forest resources at hand, axe should not be used for conversion of live trees and pitsawing shall by no means by encouraged in the Natural Forests under normal circumstances.