Harrop-Procter Community Forest employs an ecosystem-based approach to forest management. This considers a broad range of ecological and social forest values.

We approached Silva Forest Foundation, a leader in ecosystem-based forest conservation and management, to develop an ecosystem-based plan. Based on the principles of landscape ecology and conservation biology, it takes a precautionary approach to protecting water quality, wildlife habitat, old growth forests, and biodiversity.

Our detailed analysis of our land base indicates that 70% of our community forest is not suitable for timber management, either because it is too sensitive, contains critical wildlife habitat, or is economically inaccessible.  Riparian and headwaters areas, old growth forests, potentially unstable terrain, low productivity sites, and caribou habitat are all reserved.

HPCC utilizes a broad range of silvicultural systems and harvest methods, based on forest type, terrain, site sensitivity, soil moisture, and forest health considerations.  All of our harvesting operations utilize partial cutting techniques to retain mature trees dispersed throughout the harvest area.