Thank you for checking out our website and for your question regarding soils. As you guessed, the health of the forest soil is extremely important for the overall productivity and health of the forest. In addition to providing nutrients, stability and habitat for the trees, shrubs, herbs and all other plants, forest soil also sequesters carbon, which is just one way that healthy forests help to mitigate climate change.

Therefore, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard recognizes the importance of soil health and requires forest managers to implement management practices to protect and maintain soil productivity. Specifically, Performance Measure 2.3 addresses soils:

Performance Measure 2.3. Program Participants shall implement management practices to protect and maintain forest and soil productivity.

Indicators:
1. Use of soils maps where available.
2. Process to identify soils vulnerable to compaction and use of appropriate methods to avoid excessive soil disturbance.
3. Use of erosion control measures to minimize the loss of soil and site productivity.
4. Post-harvest conditions conducive to maintaining site productivity (e.g., limited rutting, retained down woody debris, minimized skid trails).
5. Retention of vigorous trees during partial harvesting, consistent with silvicultural norms for the area.
6. Criteria that address harvesting and site preparation to protect soil productivity.
7. Minimized road construction to meet management objectives efficiently.

You can download and read our full standard at http://www.sfiprogram.org/files/pdf/sfi-standard-2005-2009-sept%2008%20update.pdf.