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	Natural boundary: the visible high water mark of any lake, stream, or other body of water where the presence and action of the water are so common and usual and so long continued in all ordinary years as to mark upon the soil of the bed of the lake, river stream, or other body of water a character distinct from that of the banks, both in vegetation and in the nature of the soil itself.
	Natural disturbance regimes: the historic patterns (frequency and extent) of fire, insects, wind, landslides and other natural processes in an area.
	Natural justice: a set of procedures designed to ensure that decisions are made fairly.
	Natural range barrier: a river, rock face, dense timber or any other naturally occurring feature that stops or significantly impedes livestock movement to and from an adjacent area.
	Natural regeneration: the renewal of a forest stand by natural seeding, sprouting, suckering, or layering seeds may be deposited by wind, birds or mammals.
	Natural resource: means land, water and atmosphere, their mineral, vegetable and other components, and includes flora and fauna on or in them.
	Naturally resistant seed sources: tree species or provenances that have been shown to exhibit increased resistance to some specific pest, over that of the species or provenance that would normally be used in artificial regeneration in a particular situation.
	Net down procedure: The process of identifying the net land base, which is the number of hectares of forest land which actually contribute to the allowable annual cut. The process involves "netting down" the TSA gross area to the TSA gross forest area then to the TSA net forest area. Areas and/or volumes are sequentially deleted or reduced from the gross land base for a number of considerations, including: private ownership, non- forest or non-productive, environmentally sensitive, unmerchantible and inaccessible.
	Net land base: see Net down procedure.
	Net present value (NPV): a stand's present worth before harvesting once costs associated with its establishment and tending have been subtracted.
	Net volume: volume of the main stem excluding stump and top as well as the defective and decayed wood of trees or stands.
	New forestry: a philosophy or approach to forest management that has as its basic premise the protection and maintenance of ecological systems. In new forestry the ecological processes of natural forests are used as a model to guide the design of the managed forest.
	Non-designated wilderness: Areas within the provincial forest that have been zoned as wilderness through approved integrated resource management plans including regional land-use plans and Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMPs).
	Non-forest land: land not primarily intended for growing or supporting a forest.
	Non-timber resource values: values within the forest other than timber which include but are not limited to biological diversity, fisheries, wildlife, minerals, water quality and quantity, recreation and tourism, cultural and heritage values, and wilderness and aesthetic values.
	Non-timber resources: resources other than timber, such as recreation, aesthetics, wildlife, fish, forage, range, water, and soils.
	Normal forest: an outdated concept, drawing on the idea of a norm or standard forest structure against which existing forest structures can be compared. A normal forest is a forest composed of even-aged fully-stocked stands representing a balance of age classes such that for a specified rotation period, one age class can be harvested in each year. At the end of the rotation, the stands that were harvested first in the cycle would be ready for harvesting again.
	Not Satisfactorily Restocked (NSR): productive forest land that has been denuded and has failed, partially or completely, to regenerate either naturally or by planting or seeding to the specified or desired free growing standards for the site.
	No-work zones: areas in which equipment and people are not allowed during forestry operations, usually for safety or ecological reasons.
	Noxious weeds: any weed so designated by the Weed Control Regulations and identified on a regional district noxious weed control list.
	Nurse log: a larger and decomposing fallen log which acts as a germination substrate for tree species establishing in the understorey. Such logs provide moisture, nutrients and often some degree of elevation above other potentially competing vegetation on the forest floor.