High Conservation Value Areas
Encyclopedia
The concept of High Conservation Value Areas (HCVA) was developed by the Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) in 1999 as a means of defining regions with a specific environmental, socioeconomic, biodiversity or landscape value for use within forestry management certification systems. An area of High Conservation Value is identified as such to cover a range of conservation priorities and in order to allocate these principles each will be categorised as one of the following;
HCVA 1 -Areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g. endemism, endangered species, refugia).
HCVA 2 -Globally, regionally or nationally significant large landscape-level areas.
HCVA 3 -Areas that are in or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems.
HCVA 4 -e.g. watershed protection, erosion control.
HCVA 5 -Areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g. subsistence, health).
HCVA 6 -Areas critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of cultural, ecological, economic or religious significance identified in cooperation with such local communities).
Ecoregions
Crisis Ecoregions
High-Biodiversity Wilderness Areas
Biodiversity Hotspots
High Conservation Value Forest
Forest Stewardship Council
The Forest Stewardship Council is an international not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established in 1993 to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. Its main tools for achieving this are standard setting, independent certification and labeling of forest products...
(FSC) in 1999 as a means of defining regions with a specific environmental, socioeconomic, biodiversity or landscape value for use within forestry management certification systems. An area of High Conservation Value is identified as such to cover a range of conservation priorities and in order to allocate these principles each will be categorised as one of the following;
- Biodiversity
HCVA 1 -Areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g. endemism, endangered species, refugia).
- Landscapes
HCVA 2 -Globally, regionally or nationally significant large landscape-level areas.
- Ecosystems
HCVA 3 -Areas that are in or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems.
- Ecosystem Services
HCVA 4 -e.g. watershed protection, erosion control.
- Livelihoods
HCVA 5 -Areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g. subsistence, health).
- Cultural identity
HCVA 6 -Areas critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of cultural, ecological, economic or religious significance identified in cooperation with such local communities).
See also
Conservation movementConservation movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....
Ecoregions
Crisis Ecoregions
Crisis Ecoregions
Crisis ecoregions are terrestrial biomes facing significant threat to their biodiversity and requiring well directed conservation efforts in order to curb the irreversible loss of plant and animal species and their surrounding habitats...
High-Biodiversity Wilderness Areas
High-Biodiversity Wilderness Areas
High-Biodiversity Wilderness Areas is an elaboration on the IUCN Protected Area classification of a Wilderness Area , which outlines five vast wilderness areas of particularly dense and important levels of biodiversity...
Biodiversity Hotspots
High Conservation Value Forest
High conservation value forest
High conservation value forest is a Forest Stewardship Council forest management designation used to describe those forests who meet criteria defined by the FSC Principles and Criteria of Forest Stewardship....