HIGH CONSERVATION VALUE FORESTS (HCVF)
 
High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) is a term coined by the Forest Stewardship Council and refers to forests that possess one or more of the following attributes:

·   Forest areas containing globally, regionally, or nationally significant:
·   concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g. endemism, endangered species, refugia); and/or
·   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.

·   Forest areas that are in or contain rare, threatened, or endangered ecosystems,

·   Forest areas that provide basic services of nature in critical situations (e.g. watershed protection, erosion control),

·   Forest areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g. subsistence, health) and/or critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of cultural, ecological, economic, or religious significance identified in cooperation with such local communities).
 
For more information please see the Forest Stewardship Council web site.
 
PLANTATIONS
 
Plantations are not really forests, but rather places where trees are grown as a crop. Trees of a single species are manually planted close together in rows and are harvested in short rotations of only 25-40 years. Often, genetically engineered trees, as well as trees not native to the region are planted. The resulting stand usually bears little resemblance to the natural forests in the surrounding area and often does not provide the same quality of habitat or range of ecosystem services as natural forests. In many areas around the world, the conversion of native and old growth forests into plantations is a major threat.
 
However, plantations established on agricultural land before 1994 and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council may help in reducing pressure to log native and endangered forests. Native forests converted into plantations after 1994 are ineligible for FSC certification.
 
CONVERSION or SUBSITUTION
 
Conversion or Subsitution refers to the transformation of native forests into plantations.
 
FOREST STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL
 
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an independent, international, multi-stakeholder forestry certification organization. It trains, accredits, and monitors third-party certifiers around the world and works to establish international forest management standards. Although other organizations, including forest and paper industry associations, offer other types of certification systems, the FSC is the only one that is verifiably performance-based, has widespread market acceptance, and has established credibility with the major environmental and social organizations worldwide.
 
CERTIFICATION
 
The process of evaluating forest practices against an agreed standard by an accredited independent third-party.
 
INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTY CERTIFICATION
 
The process by which a separate entity that is considered reliable and unbiased investigates and verifies a company's adherence to a set of criteria that represent a high standard of excellence. For forest management and the labeling of products, currently the only acceptable standard is set by the Forest Stewardship Council.
 
FOREST PRODUCTS AUDIT
 
The process through which a consumer company identifies, for all wood and paper-based products it purchases, the company, country, specific forest operation, and species of the tree-based fibers used in those products in order to determine if they are derived from endangered forests. An audit may also identify other characteristics of the production and distribution process (e.g. chlorine free or post-consumer content).
 
CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY
 
The step-by-step accounting of the channel through which forest products are distributed from their forest of origin to the final end-product. It may, for example, be used to trace the origin of pulp used to make paper and paper products, or to follow the handling and manufacturing of lumber to verify the origin of the wood in the resulting end-product.