The objective of this course is to protect workers from occupational safety and health hazards in forestry work and to prevent or reduce the incidence of illness or injury by providing practical guidelines.
To ensure a safe and healthy working environment in the forestry sector, everyone involved has health and safety duties and responsibilities which are clearly outlined in Sections 8, 13 and 14 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Act 85 of 1993.
When planning and carrying out commercial forestry operations everyone is faced with a number of health and safety tasks that have to be tackled, such as:
- Completing risk assessments
- Selecting suitable equipment for the job
- Ensuring employee health and safety
- Setting out safe working procedures
- Ensuring people are adequately trained
- Supervising the work.
To successfully manage health and safety in forestry and associated haulage, there needs to be coordinated activities with others and information being passed up and down the contract chain.
