Close-to-nature forestry, or continuous cover forestry, is a forest management practice that seeks to mimic natural forest processes rather than replace them with artificial interventions. The goal is to ensure greater resilience to climate change, without neglecting the issues of productivity and profitability in forestry operations.

The practices promoted by close-to-nature forestry are:

• Maintaining continuous tree cover (avoiding clearcutting);
• Choosing tree species that are adapted to the environment and diversified, based on their interactions with each other, and favoring rare and endangered species;
• Seeking a diversity of tree diameters, in particular by allowing trees of different ages to coexist (uneven-aged stand);
• Promoting natural tree regeneration, i.e., allowing seeds present in the soil to germinate rather than planting;
• Concentrating the volume of wood on a few trees through thinning to obtain better quality wood;
• Intervening selectively and lightly, relying on natural dynamics rather than planting cycles with predetermined durations.

Close-to-nature forestry does not aim to eliminate all human intervention, but to rely on detailed observations and locally targeted interventions, rather than those carried out on a plot-by-plot basis. These practices make it possible to reconcile forest production, soil fertility and stability, and ecosystem services (biodiversity conservation, erosion protection, carbon storage, etc.) within a sustainable and multifunctional vision of the forest. However, they involve complex management: more time in the field, having to find outlets for large-diameter trees, impossible use of conventional machinery, etc.

By relying on natural processes, particularly those mediated by biodiversity, close-to-nature forestry aligns with the principles of agroecology for a sustainable management of forest ecosystems.