Guide for Planning, Construction and Maintenance of Forest Roads

The major benefits expected are: contribution to the implementation of the national policies for sustainable development; contribution to poverty alleviation in rural areas; increased supply of timber and other forest products and services from well managed forests; actual forest sector contribution to the country economy raised; technically stronger, modern forest service oriented to supporting private and public forest development in a sustainable way; wider people’s participation in policy development and implementation, and conservation of forests, watersheds and biodiversity related to forest ecosystems. The first part of the Manual introduces the main steps of forest road network planning and gives guidance on road construction under different site conditions. It demonstrates good practices to minimize the area used for building purposes, to keep the environmental impact as low as possible and to maintain forest productivity. It describes the machinery suitable for the different construction phases and compares the advantages of machine types. The second part of the Manual introduces the goals and best practices of regular forest road maintenance which is a key operation that enables multi-purpose use of forests. It gives an overview on the main causes of forest road degradation and explains the different maintenance.