The 33-year-old Amanda Crisinel-Ruch is a lumberjack and forest ranger in the canton of Vaud, one of the few women in this profession. She talks about her passion and the challenges she faces.
What a contrast! Her slender hand with its azure blue varnished nails resting on the huge wheel of the forestry machine: Amanda Crisinel-Ruch puts a feminine and flirtatious touch on a seemingly rough and masculine work environment. The young woman laughs and tells us that she has "always been like this".
"I had to prove myself
Amanda Crisinel-Ruch has been used to being a woman, or even the only woman in a team of men, since the age of 15. That's when she started her apprenticeship as a lumberjack, without any hesitation. "I always knew that I wanted to do this job, ever since I was a little girl. The fact that she was trained in the family business brought her some criticism, but she says that she was not treated differently from her fellow apprentices. On the contrary: "I had to prove myself as a girl. I wasn't pampered.
A passion for the forest and wood? She caught the virus as a young girl. Her father Daniel wasn't at home much when the children were young to set up the business, but her daughter doesn't hold that against him. "He was absorbed in his work. Today, she highlights what her parents built together. She admires their journey. In 1984, Daniel Ruch worked alone as a lumberjack and his wife, Corinne, managed the accounts. Today, the forestry company, which is very well known in the canton of Vaud, employs around forty people.
Getting respect
Being a lumberjack is physical work, even though "you have to think with your head and not just with your arms", as Amanda Crisinel-Ruch explains with a smile. So she trained as a forest ranger after seven years of lumbering and worked for the forest management of the triages in Leysin - Les Ormonts and then in Saint-Cierges. But after four years in the service of the municipalities, she felt the need for "more challenge" and returned to the family business, and thus to the private sector. At the age of 33, she is co-owner of the company with her brother Sylvain and their father. Sylvain is 36 years old and is also a lumberjack. While he works as an accountant, Amanda is responsible for team management, research and work organisation, largely for the municipalities and the canton. Looking back, she is very happy to have learned to be a lumberjack. "You have to know what you're talking about if you want to be respected," she says.
Meeting the challenge of the private sector
In a few years' time, she will be taking over the business with her brother, especially as the 59-year-old father will be even more involved in politics with his new mandate as a National Councillor. Amanda Crisinel-Ruch looks out of the kitchen window in the company's premises towards the forest and shrugs her shoulders. "In the private sector, you never know what tomorrow will bring. But I tell myself that you should always try, and I want to take up this challenge.
The forest is weakened
The insecurity of tomorrow also applies to the forest. Climate change is weakening species that have shaped the face of Swiss forests for generations. Spruce and silver fir are suffering from heat and drought, with spruce also being attacked by the bark beetle. As a result, ash trees are getting sick from a fungus called chalarosis. The forest rangers are responding by planting mixed forests and putting an end to the monocultures of the past. They are also trying to encourage species such as oaks that are better able to withstand a hot, dry climate. But Amanda Crisinel-Ruch is under no illusion that there is an immediate solution. "We will only know in several decades whether today's choices were the right ones.
Between productivity and ecology
Amanda Crisinel-Ruch is in the forest all the time, and in her spare time with her husband and their two and three year old children. Her husband is also a lumberjack, "but the boys may choose a completely different profession, and that's fine," says the mother. What is important for her, however, is to be able to pass on her love for the forest and above all respect for this heritage. "Wood is a noble material that the forest is constantly regenerating. The young woman does not see this as a contradiction in terms. We are not hurting the forest," she says, "we are helping it to regenerate more quickly. In Switzerland, the forest law is strict: the forest must not be reduced in size and it is forbidden to cut down more than the forest produces. Amanda Crisinel-Ruch finds it all the more difficult to be confronted with attacks from environmentalists who shout "murderers" when they see loggers with their heavy machines cutting down trees. Because the trees that are cut down are "mature", explains the forest warden, i.e. they could not be left standing for much longer because they would dry out and pose a health or safety hazard. The opening left is expressly filled in with young trees. "And then we have to move the heavy machines on the paths designated by the forest wardens, in order to limit the soil compaction as much as possible," adds Amanda Crisinel-Ruch. We ask her one last question before she heads off to her next appointment. What if we left it to nature? Yes, we could do it in areas where there is little traffic so as not to endanger people's safety. But the jobs related to wood would disappear and people would end up unemployed, she argues. Another negative consequence, in her view, is that "timber imports would be even higher".
Denise Lachat
