A forest that is a natural ecosystem.

• Natural forests possess many or most of the characteristics of a forest native to the given site, including species composition, structure, and ecological function. Natural forests include:
  1. Primary forests that have not been subject to major human impacts in recent history.
  2. Regenerated (second-growth) forests that were subject to major impacts in the past (for instance by agriculture, livestock raising, tree plantations, or intensive logging), but where the main causes of impact have ceased or greatly diminished and the ecosystem has attained much of the species composition, structure, and ecological function of prior or other contemporary natural ecosystems.
  3. Managed natural forests where much of the ecosystem’s composition, structure, and ecological function exist in the presence of activities such as:
     • Harvesting of timber or other forest products, including management to promote high-value species.
     • Low intensity, small-scale cultivation within the forest, such as less-intensive forms of swidden agriculture in a forest mosaic.
  4. Forests that have been partially degraded by anthropogenic or natural causes (eg, harvesting, fire, climate change, invasive species, or others) but where the land has not been converted to another use and where degradation does not result in the sustained reduction of tree cover below the thresholds that define a forest or sustained loss of other main elements of ecosystem composition, structure, and ecological function.
• The categories ‘natural forest’ and ‘tree plantation’ are mutually exclusive, though in some cases the distinction may be nuanced. Please see the Operational Guidance on Applying the Definitions Related to Deforestation and Conversion for further discussion of boundary cases.
• For the purpose of no-deforestation supply chains, the focus is on preventing the conversion of natural forests.