Occupational safety in native forest management systems: systematic review

Abstract

The objective of this work was to carry out a systematic review in order to identify the indicators related to occupational safety in native forest management systems. The search for scientific articles with interest for the review was carried out in 16 scientific databases of articles written in English. Other resources, such as specific journals not indexed to the databases previously mentioned but known to be related both to the forestry sector and to the Occupational safety, and the search websites Google and Google Scholar were also used. The PRISMA methodology was used. Based on 16 sets of keywords written in English, Spanish and Portuguese and marking the period of publication between 2005 and 2017, only 21 articles that met the defined eligibility criterion were identified. In this case, the articles mentioned the following four sets of words: "native forest", "native forest management system", "security management indicators" and "security management limitations". It was observed that the incidence of serious or fatal injuries in native forest management activities are mainly related to the use of chainsaws to cut trees and loads lifting. The implementation of forest management systems in the organizations of this sector, either through FSC and PEFC international certifications or through other country-specific standards, has led to improvements in workers' safety and health and, consequently, in the corresponding index of occupational accidents and diseases. However, the integration of occupational safety management systems into native forest management systems presents weaknesses, mainly due to the lack of supervision by subcontracted organizations (third parties), which often use personnel that was not adequately trained for the exercise of activity. Given the increasing trend of exploitation of native forests and the limited available information, these results suggest that more scientific research linking native forest management systems with occupational safety management systems in native forests is opportune and highly important.

Keywords:
Native forest management system; Safety management’ indicators; Occupational safety