The guidelines are a menu of valuable decision-making tools for landowners, resource managers, and loggers seeking to maintain forest sustainability. Guidelines balance social, economic, and environmental objectives for forest resources. They take into account resource needs, landowner objectives, forest characteristics, existing regulations, economics, and the best information about forest resources available at any given time. Site-level timber harvesting and forest management guidelines are based on seven main tenets. There are general guidelines, which apply to many forest management activities.
Forest management can contribute to the long-term sustainability of our forests.
Like many other human activities, from building houses to growing crops to living on a lake, forest management also has the potential to adversely affect site-level forest functions and values. As the needs and desires of society impose ever-increasing demands on our forest resources, the responsibility to meet those increasing demands without compromising the overall sustainability of our forest resources becomes more challenging. Within a sound stewardship framework, however, forest management can occur at the site level with no adverse effects on the sustainability of the entire forest ecosystem. To address the concern that some components of the forest are sensitive to the impacts of increasing uses, the Sustainable Forest Resources Act of 1995 directed the Minnesota Forest Resources Council to coordinate development of an integrated set of voluntary site-level timber harvesting and forest management guidelines. One technical team for each area worked to draft proposed guidelines.