the removal of all trees on a specified cutting area ( see coupe); in many cases some trees are retained for environmental protection or conservation reasons

The process of removing all trees, large and small, in a stand in one cutting operation.

The most intense method of logging, where virtually all the trees are removed at one time, leaving only habitat trees.

the most intense harvesting technique where virtually all trees are removed at one time. Often associated with plantation harvesting or land clearing for agriculture. As a forest management technique it is applied in particular forest types (e.g. karri) but habitat and seed trees are left. When regrown, forests are even aged.

Clearcutting or clearfelling is defined by the Society of American Foresters as "a method of regenerating an even-aged stand in which a new age class develops in a fully-exposed microclimate after removal, in a single cutting, of all trees in the previous stand."1 There is no agreement upon the minimum area that constitutes a clearcut, but typically, areas smaller than 5 acres would be considered "patch clearcuts". Logging to convert land for other uses does not constitute clearcutting. This is called land conversion - converting the use of land from forest to another type of use.