Turning trees to timber: a chainsaw demonstration/ training course, Kaguru Farmers' Training Centre, Meru, Kenya, 6-7 February 2006

The demonstration/training programme was conceived as part of the research project, ‘The potential of chainsaw milling for improving rural livelihoods’ funded by the Forestry Research Programme of UK government’s Department for International Development (project R8510). This aimed to undertake a global review on the role of chainsaw milling outside forests in tropical regions and undertake a stakeholder analysis to elucidate ‘when chainsaw milling makes sense’ using East Africa and specifically Kenya as a case study. Project outputs are to include a technical chainsaw milling manual and supporting posters, a summary report on the case studies and review, policy briefs, popular articles and a committed website.Two back-to-back demonstration/training courses were organised in Kenya, to ‘test’ the draft manual and posters, and to allow the project team to discuss project issues, activities and outputs directly with stakeholders, both intermediate and end users. The first training course, organised by KEFRI and HDRA was held at The Family Centre, Marigat, Baringo on 1-4 February, and is reported separately. The second was organised by ICRAF and HDRA and was held at the Kaguru Farmers’ Training Centre, Meru, 6-7 February, which is reported here. The two courses had different emphases due to the very different environmental, developmental problems and different trainee interests in target locations. Some aspects were however common and are highlighted. A short seminar detailing aspects of the training was given by Nick Pasiecznik at ICRAF headquarters on 10 February. The programme was initially divided into two distinct days, the first day comprising of a series of lectures with a demonstration of felling and milling to an invited audience. The second day was an ‘open day’, event with a series of demonstrations and talks. Due to the high demand for ‘seeing is believing’, practical demonstrations took up most of both days, with talks often being conducted in the field alongside the actual splitting of logs and timber (see a complete programme appendix). The open day was widely advertised by means of personal contacts and posters which were prominently displayed. A total of 31 trainees attended the two-day course (see Appendix 1), of which approximately half were timber processors, i.e. chainsaw owners and/or operators, a quarter were timber producers, i.e. farmers, and the remaining quarter were agricultural extension workers. An additional 30 people were estimated to have attended the open day. Feedback was recorded both formally at the end of each day, and informally through conversions throughout the course, and especially towards the end of day 2 (see General feedback). A final workshop evaluation noted the desire from all trainees for further training from both courses have been transformed into a draft proposal aiming to meet this demand

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