English - HCV Resource Network

Introduction
What are high conservation values and high conservation value
forests?
The idea of High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) was developed by the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) and first published in 1999. This concept moves the forestry
debate away from definitions of particular forest types (eg primary, old growth) or
methods of timber harvesting (e.g. industrial logging) to focus on the values that make a
forest important. By identifying these key values and ensuring that they are maintained
or enhanced, it is possible to make rational management decisions that are consistent
with the maintenance of important environmental and social values.
The key to the concept of HCVFs is the identification of High Conservation Values
(HCVs), the definition of which is given in Box I. It is these values that are important and
need to be maintained. High conservation value forests are simply the forests where
these values are found. Having identified HCVs, the forest manager should plan and
implement management in such a way as to maintain or enhance the identified HCVs
and to put in place a monitoring programme to check that this is being achieved.
Box I: Definition of High Conservation Value Forests
HCVFs are those that possess one or more of the following attributes:
HCV1 Forest areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations
of biodiversity values (e.g. endemism, endangered species, refugia).
HCV2 Forest areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant large landscape
level forests, contained within, or containing the management unit, where viable
populations of most if not all naturally occurring species exist in natural patterns of
distribution and abundance.
HCV3 Forest areas that are in or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems.
HCV4 Forest areas that provide basic services of nature in critical situations (e.g.
watershed protection, erosion control).
HCV5 Forest areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g.
subsistence, health).
HCV6 Forest areas critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of
cultural, ecological, economic or religious significance identified in cooperation with such
local communities).
FSC Principles and Criteria, February 2000
As well as its use in forest certification, the HCVF approach is therefore increasingly
being used for mapping, landscape management and conservation decision-making
approaches to forest resources. It is also being used in purchasing policies and recently
has begun to appear in discussions and policies of government agencies.