high-grading
The exploitative logging practice of removing only the largest, healthiest, most valuable trees from a forest and leaving everything else behind. Over time, high-grading reverses natural selection — the best genetics are removed and the weakest are left to reproduce. The forest that remains after decades of high-grading is smaller, weaker, and less valuable than the one that existed before. It is mining disguised as forestry.
Etymology
From mining terminology — to "high-grade" ore is to take only the richest, most valuable material. Applied to forestry with the same extractive logic.
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