An investigation into a worker being struck by a tumbling log has lead a Rotorua-based logging company to be fined and sentenced.

Cropp Logging appeared in the Tauranga District Court on Tuesday following a WorkSafe investigation into the incident.

The investigation spans from an incident in March 2017 where a worker, while on his first day working as head breaker out on a forestry site at Rangiuru, was injured.

The site was using a cabling system to move logs uphill when a hooked-on log became dislodged and began rolling down a gully. The log struck the worker resulting in significant injuries and hospitalisation.

The operation of a digger above the worker was found to have increased the risk of the log becoming dislodged and tumbling downhill.

WorkSafe's investigation into the matter has found that Cropp Logging failed to complete an adequate Safe Behavioural Observation of the worker, did not fully induct the worker into his role as head breaker-out and did not ensure that no machinery was operating above the area where the worker was breaking-out.

'Forestry is an inherently dangerous industry, from the heavy machinery being worked with, the terrain that work is conducted on and the many people involved in the process,” says WorkSafe's Deputy general manager for Investigations and Specialist Services Simon Humphries.

'A lax approach to managing risk on forestry sites is not acceptable, particularly when considering the rates of fatalities and harm in the industry. Systems and procedures have their purpose and place, and should be implemented to keep everyone safe from harm in the workplace”.

Cropp Logging Limited has been sentenced under sections 36(1)(a), 48(1) and (2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

It has been ruled that being a PCBU, the company failed to comply with a duty to ensure the health and safety of workers, so far as reasonably practicable, that exposes individual to a risk of death or serious injury or serious illness.

The maximum penalty for the sentence is a fine not exceeding $1,500,000.

A fine of $100,000 has been imposed on the company, which has been reduced from $750,000 for financial reasons and in consideration of the size of the family-owned and operated company.

In addition reparation costs of $80,000 has been ordered.

The sentence follows another incident where a forestry worker was killed near Manawatu on Tuesday.

Police received a report at around 10.40am that a tree had fallen on a forestry worker operating on Ridge Road.

"A helicopter responded but unfortunately the man died at the scene,” says police in a statement.