TIMBER STAND REGENERATION AND IMPROVEMENT Sample Clauses

TIMBER STAND REGENERATION AND IMPROVEMENT. Timber stand regeneration and improvement includes activities necessary to establish, grow, and achieve the desired species composition, spacing, and rate of growth of young forest stands. Such activities include: • Site preparation, prescribed burning, and slash treatment • Tree planting • Control of competing vegetation • Precommercial thinning and pruning Green Diamond manages timber in the Initial Plan Area under a Maximum Sustained Production (MSP) plan prepared and approved in accordance with state law. Under the MSP plan, annual harvest levels are carefully scheduled to balance forest growth and timber harvest over a 100-year period and to achieve maximum sustained production of high quality timber products while protecting resource values such as water quality and wildlife. Stands are considered ready for harvest once they enter the 50-year age class. However, state laws that constrain both the size of even-aged management units and the timing of adjacent even-age harvesting operations can delay the harvest of many stands until they reach the 70 year age class. The estimated average age of stands harvested is expected to be around 55 years as the property approaches full regulation. With the exceptions noted below, Green Diamond plans to practice even-aged management in the Plan Area, using clear-cutting as the harvest/regeneration method. Clearcutting provides for prompt regeneration of redwood and Xxxxxxx-fir, the principal commercial tree species in these forests, and maintains these trees in a "free-to-grow" state that is not compromised by competition with a residual overstory of older trees or by the possibility of damage from the repeated site disturbance that is implicit in the application of other silvicultural systems. The growth potential inherent in the use of clearcutting in these forest types was assumed in the calculation of yields for Green Diamond’s sustained yield (Option A document). The primary exceptions to clearcutting will occur in the following situations: • Areas where past use of selection or seed tree logging has left residual mature timber that will be harvested in “seed tree removal” or “overstory removal” operations. • Areas where buffers along public roads or near urban development are harvested using the shelterwood or selection systems so that the visual impact of timber harvesting is ameliorated. • Overly steepened or unstable slopes where slope stability concerns take precedence over forest productivity. • Riparia...