High grading

The term high grading in forestry, fishing and mining relates to selectively harvesting goods, to “cut the best and leave the rest”. In mining, it can also be a term for theft.

In forestry, high grading is a selective type of timber harvesting that removes the highest grade of timber (i.e. the most merchantable stems ) in an area of forest. The stunted, slow growing or poorly formed trees that are left as residuals will, if ecological conditions permit, reseed the space that has been created. Over time the practice of high grading can therefore give rise to forest stands containing stems of less value in terms of timber quality. It is different from Selection cutting.

Not only are economic forestry aspects destroyed, but also ecological values are threatened. The forests so managed will be degraded in terms of biodiversity, genetic diversity and species mix. The variety needed of different ages and species mixes will be threatened and funding good silvicultural practices will be harder without an even flow of value from timber, non-timber forest products and other land values such as hunting, wildlife watching or amenity use of forests. Forests may become unsafe for people to go in them due to a large amount of unmanaged trees at risk falling on them in a storm.

The opposite of this practice is low grading, where the lower quality trees are periodically harvested, making the genetic stock faster growing and of better timber quality. Such stems might well be taken by use of thinning methods as part of a thinning régime, especially via the thinning from below method.

High grading is a practice of selectively harvesting fish so that only the best quality fish are brought ashore. The practice is popular in situations under individual fishing quotas where only a limited number of fish are allowed to be harvested. Following the letter, but not the spirit of the law, fish are caught, and if not considered optimal, thrown back into the ocean. The practice of high grading allows fishers to get higher prices for their limited catch but is environmentally destructive because many of the fish returned to the water die. This was an issue with the EU regulation of fisheries. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a celebrity chef, led a campaign against this with a TV show called Hugh´s Fish Fight, which successfully lobbied for a change in EU law to reduce the waste (discards) from thrown back fish in sea fishery.

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Wikipedia