What is "appropriate technology"?

Oh Geez guys, I am not wanting to be divisive. I hope I can get this posted before it disappears again. I wrote on this the other night in response to John’s post and the computer crashed before I could hit submit.

I am not against “appropriate technology”, which is this case is a euphemism for machines – fossil fuel fired machines. I drive a truck to and from work, load with a knuckleboom and haul with a truck, use a forwarder often – with all logs and wood that was cut with a machine (chainsaw), all fossil fuel fired.

My point and this is my only point – on this subject is that the phrase will compromise much of the purity of our efforts. We all know we can’t operate without it nor do we want do given the poor markets for our services and goods produced. I was just suggesting not including that phrase in our wording because it will come back to haunt us in the future when folks dismiss our efforts as not about animal powered forestry.

For instance, write a grant to the National Center for “Appropriate Technology” and ask them for support to train folks to work with animals in the forest and you will be told it is not an appropriate technology and is heritage based historical technique not appropriate for the future. We know they are wrong, so we don’t want to invite criticism by using a phrase that allows someone to lessen the quality of our efforts as those efforts relate to animal power being truly appropriate as all the power needed to accomplish many of the tasks of forest products harvesting.

This is only semantics maybe and it is only my opinion and it is up to the group as a whole to decide how to word our mission, goals and objectives.

I hope we can get on to other things now that it is clear I am not opposed to the use of fossil fuel machines, heck – we all have a responsibility to do our own part to run it out as quick as possible… I know I do my part. Now I’m off to ride the fire from our mother’s guts to town to buy salt, sugar and more bullets….weekly routine with the old lady, y’all know where it’s at….

Good work as usual Scott, keep it up.

What’s next?

Sincerely,

I agree with Jason. It will be more divisive if we include such a statement because then we will have to define it, and adhere to that definition. Having bunched for skidders, crawlers, forwarders, and even skidded from a crawler bunching for me, I can appreciate the intent of the statement.

I think if we concentrate on the crux of our effort, Draft Animal Powered Forestry, then we will have our greatest effect. I can see that somehow encouraging the development of certain types of equipment that may be more facilitative to the use of animals, ie walking beam arches, or multi-purpose skidding tools, might be close to that objective, but the lines are murky when we try to define what is truely “appropriate”.

Just so you all know, I have never owned a tractor or other such conveyance. I have logged with bob-sled, scoot, and forecart, almost exclusively, and I have stacked hundreds of thousands of board feet, and hundreds of cords, by hand. For me the choice was not as much “appropriateness” due to the relationship to working animals, as much as my own personal financial calculation. (I’ll also say that I thrive on significant physical exertion)

So anyway my point is that what is “appropriate” to me may be ludicrous to another. I think we should collect the mission of this group to not be about who is in because of how they do what they do, but rather how we all can be in because of a few core deatils that bind us all together.

Carl

This is the only way to realy get the ball rolling,with out haveing finger poiting later on down the road! I think we all have busy secduals but if we have enough time to look at these post it certanly dosnt take that much longer to type a yea or nea
As far as appropriate tec. I think that one should incoperate any tec that allows you to handle the job effichantly and safely we have a quater mile skid to the road on the job I am working now and I have to use my truck to haul the logs from the woods to the landing [Woods are land locked ] even with a swedish HD forwarder it would be hard to make any money,going that far so we load the truck at the edge of the woods and dump it at the road side landing for the picker truck to load and haul to the mill. I can get four cords on my dump bed !

Thought I had participated here but think it was another thread. Anyway, I think, “appropriate,” should be left out. If we are reaching out to folks lets keep it as inclusive as possible. Folks with similar uses of animals and or equipment will find each other. The point is lets get everybody in and sharing.
For me, as stated earlier I need the loader in the yard. Just cannot stack the wood like I did before. And I need the time saved to get in to market and get my check.
I worked with John last week chopping and the combination of horse, mule and tractor power got a lot of wood down and out to a distant landing pretty efficiently.
So for now lets leave the word, “appropriate” out.
Jimbojim