Analysis on development and driving force of animal skidding in Heilongjiang Province of China

Skidding operation is the most important procedure in the course of production in the felling area. However, traditional ground machine skidding can no longer adapt itself to working conditions in the felling area faced with the problems of the forest area with fiercely resource quality decreasing, forest resource exhaustion, and low stand quality, etc. in the Heilongjiang Province of China while proportion of animal skidding in skidding operation of forest area increases year by year. Therefore it is practically important to conduct driving force analysis of animal skidding operation. Data obtained by collecting through the investigation and research were analyzed by SPSS and a method of combining qualitative and quantitative determination was used to analyze the skidding volume and the proportion of skidding methods, as well as the annual skidding volume, work capacity and the skidding costs in Heilongjiang Province of China. The results showed that the change of deforestation operating conditions and forest resource structure promoted the development of animal logging operations in Heilongjiang province. Meanwhile, it was predicted that the animal skidding would still occupy a dominant position among logging methods in the next few years in the forestry of Heilongjiang province.