Page 51 - Thetha Issue 7

SUSTAINABILITY
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Original George Campus built by
Department of Agriculture to train foresters

From left: Semi mechanised planting –
tractor-towed-pitting with people planting
in the rear. Dr Ramantswana alongside a
planting machine in Sweden
semi-mechanised and mechanised
operations in our country.”
To advance modern silviculture
technologies, his team is working with
Professor Saulo Guerra from UNESP,
who also represents IPEF (Instituto de
Pesquisas e Estudos Florestais) – a
Brazilian institute for the development
of cooperative studies and research in
forest plantations.
“In 2018 I spent time in Brazil
with Prof Guerra and he recently
visited us on the George Campus
in June 2023. We started with a
student exchange in 2018 and we
are building on this. We collaborate
in research, co-author publications
and are currently compiling a book
on modern silviculture technologies
in South Africa and Brazil, due for
publication in 2025.”

Long-term planning

can be used to ensure the spacing as the use of machinery for residue Silviculture requires long-
of plants meets the specifications management (for example, mulching), term planning, with pine trees
for optimal yield, saving hundreds of pitting and planting, but many other taking 20 to 30 years to mature
human hours. areas continue to be done manually and eucalyptus 7 to 10 years.
by a dwindling labour force,” he The plantation forests around
Mechanisation is key explains. George are predominantly
In 2020, Dr Ramantswana completed “Forestry is mainly based in rural pine, whereas in Mpumalanga
his PhD, which focused on assessing areas and young people are not and KwaZulu-Natal, the
the mechanisation status and drivers always interested in doing labour- emphasis is on both pine and
of silviculture technologies both intensive work; many prefer to eucalyptus. Pine is used for
in South Africa and globally with a migrate to larger cities to seek other structural timber such as for
focus on possible future technology opportunities. This trend will drive structural timber and furniture;
adoptions in forestry. greater use of technology in the eucalyptus is mainly used for
“In South Africa we have future; however, for now, we have pulp and paper.
modernised certain activities, such an acceptable balance of manual,

2023 |www. mandela.ac.za | 49