Protection: High Conservation Value Forests

Forests of outstanding and critical importance

High conservation value forests (HCVF) are defined as forests of outstanding and critical importance due to their environmental, socio-economic, biodiversity or landscape values. WWF promotes this practical approach towards responsible forestry across all land tenures.

Why identify HCVFs?
Identifying forests of high conservation value assists forest owners, companies and other relevant forest stakeholders in conservation planning, for instance to decide which parts of a forest must be given higher priority for protection than others.

The HCVF concept focuses on the values which make the forest important in a particular social, cultural and geographical context. It is these values which must be identified and protected.

For instance, if the identified conservation value is the highly endangered mountain gorilla of Rwanda, then the forest in which these gorillas live becomes a high conservation value forest and management activities in that forest must protect gorillas. Similarly, if the high conservation value identified is the sacred burial area of an indigenous people, then the forest containing the burial sites becomes an HCVF and management within that forest must protect the burial sites.

Engaging stakeholders to conserve HCVFs
WWF calls on producers, retailers and investors in the forestry, agricultural, mining and petroleum sectors and governments to ensure that their business activities do not promote the clearing or degradation of HCVFs.

WWF works with partners to identify and protect forests with high conservation value. A generic HCVF toolkit which needs to be adapted for local, ecological and sociological conditions, provides practical guidelines to identify and manage high conservation value forests.

The toolkit is currently being tested on a national level in a number of countries.