Evaluating the impacts of the Tennessee master logger program

A field evaluation of Best Management Practices was used to determine the effectiveness of the Tennessee Master Logger Program (TMLP). The study was focussed and conducted on non-industrial private forestland (NIPF), and excluded harvests on land owned by forest industry or public forests. Completed logging jobs were scored on 4 possible disturbance areas of timber harvesting: 1) haul roads, 2) skid trails, 3) log decks, and 4) Streamside Management Zones (SMZs). These four scores were added together to yield an overall BMP score. Of 191 randomly chosen observation sites across the state of Tennessee, 38, or 19.9%, were logged by trained Master Loggers. A significant association (p < .05) was found between logger training and overall BMP score using a point biserial correlation. Only 17 of the 627 scores (some sites did not have all 4 areas of the harvest, for example, SMZs are not necessary on sites without streams), or 2.6%, exhibited threats to water quality. Of these 17, Master Loggers were only responsible for 3 water quality threats. Point biserial correlations also indicated that a substantial association (p < .05) existed between harvests completed by Master Loggers and the scores of haul roads, skid trails, log decks, and SMZ grades. This study indicates that those loggers who received training from the TMLP were more likely to implement Best Management Practices during harvesting operations on NIPF than those loggers who did not participate in the Tennessee Master Logger Program.