High conservation value area

High conservation value forest (HCVF) is a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest management designation used to describe those forests who meet criteria defined by the FSC Principles and Criteria of Forest Stewardship.

Specifically, high conservation value forests are those that possess one or more of the following attributes:

The arose relatively recently in connection with the development of standards for the certification of forest management. The term was developed by the Forest Stewardship Council, A.C. (FSC), which is an international accreditation association1 incorporated in 1995. The FSC first started considering the term high conservation values in 1996 and formally included the term high conservation value forests in the FSC Principles and Criteria of Forest Stewardship in January 1999.

A number of terms have been used somewhat interchangeably with the term HCVF. To a certain extent this arises from translation between languages and to a certain extent it arises from varying approaches at interpretation. The Spanish version uses the terms bosques con alto valor de conservación (forests with high value of conservation) and bosques con alto valor para la conservación (forests with high value for conservation).

As noted, the term HCVF arose following consideration of the term high conservation values; this usage led to the concept of forests having high conservation values and forests with high conservation values. Indeed, the term high conservation value is sometimes given its own acronym HCV; however, the FSC refers to an HCV as "attributes".

Examples of the large landscape globally important forests include the Canada boreal forest and the remaining Amazon rainforest.

Examples of forest types which embrace rare or endangered species include the Dry deciduous forests of Madagascar the two Monterey Cypress of central coastal California and the Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forests of coastal California.

Following the inclusion of the term in the FSC P&C in 1999, the FSC formed an Advisory Panel for the Implementation of high conservation value forests and the precautionary principle. This panel produced a number of consultation documents on how to identify HCVF, including indicators and verifiers. However, this consultation process was not finalized and FSC has yet to issue any specific guidance regarding HCVF1.

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