Tree Planting in Europe

[urban_eu]

[Edit by Admin: This topic applies only to work in the EU outside of the United Kingon. Scotland/England/Wales planting has its own topic in the Q&A forum].


Hello group,

could someone assist me or has any information whatsoever in finding work in Sweden (can be Norway or Finland too) as a tree planter?

I've been searching the net for the past couple of days, but have not uncovered any real information.

I'm a beginner and have never planted before, but I would like to try out a season during the summer.

Thanks!

[Mike]

There is some in the Czech republic as well, but a Czech I met said that you do it in 2 person pairs; one person screefing, one person planting, sometimes making a fixed wage. If that is indeed the case, you might be better off coming to Canada.

[McScriefin']

Yeah, theres tons of planting in Norway, but its for nationals pretty much exclusively(business laws). If you have citizenship then there is good money to be made for a good and fast planter, the tenders are available in smallish lots, but several can be aquired, if your any good at that stuff. A good friend of mine (who is Canadian) lives for the most part in Norway, and has been trying to get his foot in the door with setting up a planting company, but its gonna have to go through his GF's name etc, lots of hoops to jump through it seems.....

As for Eastern Europe, the money is soooo bad, that if your used to earning good wages, you would likely be upset... unless your there for travel/fun and dont care about the cash then, not really worth the effort involved.... in my humble opinion.

[kanda]

Hi there,

so is there anyone who knows where to look for a treeplanting job in Scandinavia? There is no info on a web I could find. So if you guys by any chance have some tips or know somebody who worked there in northern europe, would appreciate that.
Havin one planting season experience in Ontario, I'm most probably not gonna get a canadian work permit this year.

Thanx a lot!

[Mike]

If you are an EU citizen with Canadian planting experience, I think Scotland might be a more profitable bet than continental Europe, from the rumours I've heard. Lack of information on this leads me to tell you upfront I'd guess my probability of being right on this is 55-60%, but if you decide to give Scotland a shot, Eric Boyd and Hugh Gilmour (Flatcap Forestry) both have Websites, and Cawdor forests has posted on here a few times (search for "Cawdor").

I can't help you with continental EU stuff. I suspect no one can. Any information you find, I'd love to hear.

[East]

If you want piece work in Europe your much better off trying to land a fruit picking job

[Mike]

I'm looking for rumours, hearsay, and bullshit about planting in places other than the normal 3/4 (US, Can, Australia, UK)

Thus far, I have:
1) In Slovakia, there is some planting done by forestry students, entirely in pairs, one with a mattock screefing and one actually planting. They make 8-10 Euro an hour.

2) In Portugal, the small town I'm in right now (Aljezur) has cutblocks on the hills in front of me. I ask the owner of the hostel what it is: He tells me that Portugal farms eucalyptus to produce pulp and paper, and that there are 2-3 big pulp/paper mills, which leads me to this company:
http://www.portucelsoporcel.com/en/group/docs/08.html

But I can't find anything on their site about their planting cycles for their eucalyptus.

From wikipedia;

The Portucel Soporcel Group has a productive capacity of 1.6 million tonnes of paper and 1.4 million tonnes of pulp,[6] with 1,380 km2 of forest, and an annual turnover of over €1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion).

I don't know if those numbers are hilariously low compared to Canada or not.

3) In Lake Bled, in Slovenia, I saw a loaded logging truck a year ago. I never saw the cut blocks.

4) Brinkman had some sort of contract somewhere in South America at some point. Has anyone ever met someone that actually worked it? Can we get them to come here and relate some details?

[Chocolatej]

I know one of the scottish contractors was trying to get a large contract in north eastern France that had considerable amount of damaged forest due to wind storms. They found it financially unfeasible in the end though, due to France's preference and incentives for domestic labour. I assume the work is being done someway or another now.

[Scooter]

I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff Schnurr was involved with the Brinkman South America stuff years ago, or at least would know about it. If I run into him up in New Brunswick at any point in the next couple weeks before I head back out to BC, I'll see what he knows. He runs Community Forests International, and would probably be one of the very best people for information about planting around the world.

[ohsnap]

When I went to Australia to plant five years ago, there was information all over the web about planting abroad, as a job, and I'm talking like lists of countries with websites to visit... Costa Rica, Japan, Germany, a lot of countries not on the usual suspect lists.
Now I can't find even a trace of information, aside from volunteering.

[treeguy]

I worked with a guy from France (worked together in Canada) and he went back home and got his own contracts there.
I also know someone who plants in Norway as well.

And I think brinkman used to plant in Costa Rica.

[Rodeo]

Brinkman plants in Central America but they only hire locals. Jeff's (CFI) work is mainly in Africa, there's only two of them that make any money off it and the rest are volunteers/locals. I heard a rumor about planting in Iceland where the permafrost is receding.

[Mike]

Ooooh, I was just planning to spend 3 months in France woofing next year to work on my french. Planting could be solid, too...

Treeguy, can I ask you (if you have facebook/email for either the France or Norway guys) to send them this link? Or I'm PMing you an e-mail address that I'd appreciate if you pass along?

[stanley]

Hi! I'm a polish student and I want to work as a tree planter this season. I really wanted to go to Canada but unfortunately, I probably won't be able to get a working holiday visa in Canada as I applied for it just a week ago. My last hope is to find employment in Sweden, where I planted for a season last year with a company that went bankrupt. I am writing with hope that you might know someone I could contact to get some further information regarding tree planting in Sweden. I would really appreciate any help. Thank you!

[Scooter]

I just moved your post into this Tree Planting in Europe thread.

[Mike]

My last hope is to find employment in Sweden, where I planted for a season last year with a company that went bankrupt.

You worked there. None of us did. I'd love it if you wrote more about it; where people were from, rate of pay, areas worked.

[Scooter]

I received an email from someone this week that provided information to be added to this thread about planting in Europe. This is what he sent me:

------

"First of all, the huge clearcuts you make in North America are generally not made in Europe. In general, the practice of clearcut is done only for the pure woods of conifers. Clearcuts usually don't exceed 5 hectares in size in central Europe and 10 ha in Scandinavia. In the mountains they are usually smaller (3 hectares or less) and often made in strips so that the forest naturally renews totally by itself with seeds carried by the wind. Otherwise they proceed to planting. For mixed and broadleave forests, however, clearcuts are never made but shelterwood cuttings are generally applied, exploiting only natural forest renewal. In recent decades in central and western Europe fewer clearcuts have been made, moving slowly to shelterwood cuttings, femelschlag, selective cutting, CCF and other close-to-nature methods. There are also countries where clearcuts are prohibited (eg. Italy or Slovenia), except for very particular forests, large wind damages or for insect damage (barkbeetle outbreaks). The fact that less and less clearcuts are made is due to the cost of artificial plantation, the cost of subsequent thinning and to the fact that the foresters have noticed that often with too large clearcuts the soil is depleted and loses fertility. Furthermore, the size of private forest properties is not as large as in North America. Rarely a private landowner own more than 15-20 hectares of forest, especially in central and southern Europe, so he has no interest in cutting everything and then leaving nothing to his children.

about tree planting:
- in states where clearcuts are allowed, replanting activities are often carried out directly by forest owners, since the surfaces to be replanted are small and can be done in a few working days (e.g. Austria).
- there are no companies that only do replanting activities like yours. Generally the workers who replant are lumberjacks who are part of forestry companies that do mainly other jobs (e.g. cutting mature stands, thinning, pruning). These companies are unlikely to hire someone just for replanting.
- In flat forests of northern Europe often the plantation is done mechanically using special machinery to be applied on the harvesters (transplanting heads), so it is not a job for seasonal workers unless they know how to drive a harvester.
- it may happen that in certain situations large planting activities are carried out, generally after large wind storms or barkbeetle attacks. However, it is difficult to know in advance how these activities are organized (often with Governament economic help), so it is difficult for a non-local to find work in these cases.
- the situation is slightly different for Eastern Europe where larger clearcuts are practiced and lately there has been enormous damage from barkbeetle. In these cases they proceed to large plantations but, as you can imagine, the pay is very low.
- due to global warming, Germany is replacing many low altitude spruce mature plantations with more natural and suitable mixed forests (beech, silver fir, Douglas fir). They call it tannenoffensive. I don't know if in this case they are looking for seasonal people just to replant. Perhaps some information can be found on the Bayerische Staatsforsten website.

[_I3^RELATIVISM]

I worked with a guy from France (worked together in Canada) and he went back home and got his own contracts there.
I also know someone who plants in Norway as well.

And I think brinkman used to plant in Costa Rica.

hey quote=treeguy how have you been by anychance could you give the contact of this guy?