Forest Stewardship
HVP respect our people, stakeholders and the environment. HVP strive to manage the forest assets in line with our mission to manage the plantation estate in a safe and sustainable way to optimise the return to our investors whilst balancing the needs of our employees, customers, and local communities. In other words, be responsible stewards of the resources of the forest; for economic, environmental and social benefits to our stakeholders.
Our people are the key to our success.
As an organisation and as individuals we hold these values central to everything we do. We do the right thing when no one is watching. Integrity is essential to everything we do; managing other peoples investments, managing the environment, managing our operations. Our staff need to be responsible and accountable and take ownership of decisions. We need to innovate, understanding we need to do things better tomorrow than we did today. And as a commercial business we must retain a commercial and customer focus to make every tree count whilst respecting the environment our people and stakeholders, to maintain the balance that is at the core of our mission.
The following ten points form the basis of HVP’s Stewardship Policy which underpin how we undertake our business and forest operations.
As stewards of the land,
the company will:
- Manage the forest estate according to all statutory requirements inluding the Code of Practice for Timber Production and other forest management requirements as outlined in the Forest Management System.
- Incorporate performance indicators into the Forest Management System and Forest Management Plan including a framework for setting and reviewing forest management objectives
- Promote the development of employees and the use of appropriately skilled contractors with emphasis on scientific excellence in relation to forest management, the environmental quality of the estate and sensitivity to stakeholder views.
- Maintain forest ecosystem health and vitality by protecting Company forest from fire, pests and diseases through long-term resource sustainability strategies and short-term integrated pest management programs with minimal environmental impact.
- Consider the public resources of the forest – its water, soil, biological diversity, cultural heritage, landscape amenity and recreational values – and manage them with a long-term sustainable perspective and the prevention of soil and water pollution.
- Implement programs to better understand the capacity of the forest to act as a net carbon sink and develop practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of forest management activities.
- Contribute long term social and economic benefits to the community from Company forest management through the use of integrated forest management procedures and planning.
- Consider the views of stakeholders in the development of the Forest Management Plan and to address social and environmental issues arising from the management of the forest estate.
- Conduct research to maintain the productive capacity of the forest land and monitor environmental, economic and social aspects of forest management.
- Provide adequate resources to implement and maintain the system and to facilitate continual improvement of forest management performance.
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