Brash Chipping RSPB Forsinard Feb - March 2023

Tender description

Brash chipping and haulage after felling operations to reduce the amount of woody material on a site that is being restored from forest to bog. For this tender we would like the contractor to come up with a workable and cost-effective proposal for chipping brash at Forsinard, your price should encompass the following elements. - Chipper to be and placed on a hardstanding area provided by RSPB Forsinard Reserve. - Forwarding machinery and associated cost to transport brash to chipper for processing. - Research and cost a suitable market for the sale of wood chippings. - Providing the most cost-effective haulage solution for the product from site to market with a breakdown of costs to include chipping and haulage. Costings should also show the potential market value of chip and any potential profit and loss forecasted. This can be provided as an Excel spreadsheet. The waste brash material left over from felling has always been an issue at Forsinard and it has proved difficult to deal with. The main restoration technique we have used for dealing with brash up to now has been deep mulching. This is effective in reducing the brash, grinding out the stumps and in reprofiling the plough furrows. The downside of deep mulching is that material is reduced in size and remains on site and small pockets of sphagnum which have already started to colonise on previously forested areas are often destroyed. If the brash is chipped it would mean that a large amount of material is removed from site and sold to be converted into wood pellets which can be used as fuel. This is something that we want to trial because we think it will have the following benefits to peatland restoration at Forsinard Flows Reserve. - Overall chipping recently felled areas is cheaper than the higher cost of deep mulching as the brash has a value for sale as woodchip. - It will remove the bulk of waste material meaning more effective peatland restoration and a speedier recovery to blanket bog which will in turn speed up carbon storage. - It means there will be less nutrients left on site to leach out and potentially effect watercourses. - The risk of having a ready supply of fuel during a wildfire is greatly reduced.