Agriculture

In order to interview Mr. Hutter for the article and video, we packed all our video gear onto the train and began the ascent of Mount Rigi. Known as a ‘cogwheel’ train, the train rests on tracks like any other, but has an additional gear that attached to a cogged track between the two smooth ones. The gear locks into this cogged track, pulling the train up the unusually steep mountainside railway to the summit of Mount Rigi.

Ever since his childhood, Maik Retz always felt at home in the forest. Growing up two hours west of Berlin in a rural farming and forestry area, he knew he wanted to make forestry his career. His father started a business producing firewood and fencing material more than 40 years ago, and Maik started working in the business in 1994. Maik now operates the business with his brother and one other employee.

The WM1000, which can cut logs up to 1.7m diameter in the centre, was originally designed to meet demand for a cost-effective machine to saw tropical hardwood logs in Asia and Africa, but at Copford Farm Sawmill in Sussex it is proving its worth cutting large diameter oak prized for top grade joinery as well as quarter-sawn material for furniture.