Shelterwood cutting is a silvicultural system

Silviculture

Silviculture is the practice of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests to meet diverse needs and values. The name comes from the Latin silvi- + culture...

 in which trees

Tree

A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 are removed

Logging

Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...

 in a series of cuts
designed to achieve a new even-aged stand under the shelter of remaining trees.
It is similar to selective

Selection cutting

Selection cutting is the silvicultural practice of harvesting a proportion of the trees in a stand. Selection cutting is the practice of removing mature timber or the lessening of older trees to improve the timber stand. This system may be used to manage even or uneven-aged stands...

 and seed tree cutting in that it the ground is never left completely bare. Compared to clearcutting, shelterwood systems cause less damage to the site ecologically and aesthetically.
Shelterwood systems may be used with even-aged or uneven-aged forest stands. The result of shelterwood cutting is a single-aged stand.

• The first cut removes most canopy trees, unwanted tree species, and diseased, defective, and dying trees. Enough trees must be removed to allow for natural regeneration to occur.
• Once enough seedlings have taken hold, a second cut removes more canopy trees but leaves some of the best mature trees to shelter the young trees.
• After perhaps another decade, a third cut removes the remaining mature trees and the remaining uniformly aged stand of young trees grows to maturity.

There are many variations on the shelterwood system. If seedlings are present under the uncut stand (advance regeneration), the first cut may not be necessary. Also, if enough regeneration is present after the first cut, the second cut may not be necessary.

Although the term "shelterwood" denotes a process whereby older trees provide shelter to the younger trees, the shelterwood system provides benefits other than providing shelter. One benefit is that the older trees continue to increase in value after the regeneration process has begun.

Shelterwood cutting combined with seed tree cutting make up only 4% of logging done in Canada.