Integrative Forest Management Guidelines
P6. Avoidance of intensive management operations
Avoiding intensive forest management operations helps protect the ecological processes that maintain healthy, resilient forest ecosystems. Minimizing disturbance to soils, watercourses, dead wood, and regenerating vegetation supports biodiversity, and natural processes that maintain soil fertility, nutrient cycling, and water regulation.
P6-A1 Minimizing the use of agrochemicals
Minimizing agrochemical use involves prioritizing preventive forest management and non-chemical alternatives, with pesticides used only as a carefully assessed last resort.
P6-A2 Restricting machine traffic
Machine traffic can cause severe and long-lasting soil disturbances that harm forest health and productivity. Restricting machine traffic to a planned extraction network helps mitigate these impacts.
P6-A3 Retaining deadwood during salvage logging
Retaining standing dead trees and lying logs after natural disturbances provides habitat for organisms that depend on dead wood. As the logs decompose, they release nutrients that improve soil functioning.
P6-A4 Protecting watercourses
Careful planning of machine trails and stream crossings helps prevent soil disturbance, sediment transport, and damage to water quality and aquatic ecosystems.