High Conservation Value areas – a plantation forestry perspective

What are HCV Areas?
The HCV Concept
They are areas that receive priority for conservation because of:
FSC Standard – HCV Forests
•Forest areas containing globally, regionally or
nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity
values and/
•or large landscape level forests where viable
populations of most/all naturally occurring species
exist in natural patterns of distribution and abundance;
Sappi interpretation HCV Areas
Ecological/species considerations
- Biodiversity “hotspots”
- Rare, threatened species
- Serve as corridors
Size
- Very large areas conserving a variety of
habitats
Water conservation requirements
•Forests that provide basic ecological services in
critical situations (e.g. water quality or flow, protection
against erosion or natural disasters such as cyclones
or hurricanes, pollinators);
•Forests fundamental to meeting basic economic or
bio-physiological needs of local communities or critical
to local community cultural identity.
- Important streams for downstream users
Visual /social considerations
- Waterfalls,vleis, recreation, expansive
grasslands