Investigation of occupational accidents at the forestry harvesting activities

Abstract

Occupational accidents are affecting human life each year causing serious problems in Turkey and around the world. For this reason, it is seen that there is a need for more occupational health and safety studies. Forestry is one of the sectors with a high risk group in general. In this study, In this study, occupational accident ratio and some habits of forest harvesting workers, and the reasons of the accidents were investigated. The data obtained from a total of 111 forest workers responded to a self-administered questionnaire working at the harvesting practises at Directorates of Forest Enterprises Adana, Ankara, Bolu, Çorum, Erzincan, Kocaeli, Sinop and Tokat were used. According to findings; 15 % of forestry workers had at least an occupational accident and the causes of accidents were determined as difficulty of workplace, excessive fatigue-sleeplessness, ignorance-lack of education, adverse weather conditions, deficiency of personal protection equipment and carelessness. Suggestions were made in order to minimize the occupational accidents in forest areas and to offer better conditions to the forest workers.