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Today more than half of the world's original
forest cover is destroyed, the remaining is mostly degraded,
and only 22 percent remains as "frontier" forests, defined by
the World Resources Institute as "large intact natural forest
ecosystems capable of providing a safe habitat for all of its
indigenous species." Just 3 percent of the world's remaining
frontier forests are in the temperate zone, and one-third of
the threatened temperate frontier forests are found in Chile.
Temperate rainforests are even rarer, originally covering
just 0.2 percent of the Earth's land area. They are more endangered
than tropical rainforests because of this smaller land area
- and today more than half of the world's temperate rainforests
have already been destroyed. Southern Chile is home to one of
the world's last two extensive temperate rainforests, the other
extends in various conditions from northern California to British
Columbia and southeast Alaska.
Only five percent of the world's temperate forests are found
in the southern hemisphere, in Chile, and in Argentina, Uruguay,
New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Many millions of years
ago, in the Eocene era, Chile's native forests were once joined
with these other southern temperate forests in a vast supercontinent
scientists call Gondwanaland. Even today these Gondwana forests
still have similar characteristics and are each dominated by
Nothofagus and Podocarpus trees. But when the supercontinent
broke-up, Chile evolved into a biogeographical island, isolated
from other forested areas by the Atacama desert to the north,
the Andes mountains to the east, and the Pacific ocean to the
west. This is a principal reason why some scientists estimate
that as much as 90 percent of plant and animal species in Chile's
forests may be endemic.
Chile has the highest rate of biodiversity of the world's
temperate forests due to its many diverse ecosystems and varied
landscape and climate. Chile's forests have one of the world's
largest concentrations of biomass, producing between 500 to
2000 tons of organic matter per hectare. Many valuable medicinal
plants have been discovered in native forests by the indigenous
people of southern Chile. The forests are habitat for numerous
species of native mammals such as wildcats, fox, and deer. However,
40 mammals are listed as endangered, vulnerable or rare by CONAF,
Chile's forest and park service. Chile's national emblem species,
a native deer called the huemul, is on the borderline of extinction.
The many vast tracts of pristine, old-growth forests remaining
in southern Chile include trees hundreds and thousands of years
old. Two of the most extraordinary trees are the alerce (Fitzroya
cupressoides) and araucaria (Araucaria araucaria). Both have
protection status in Chile as Natural Monuments, but there continue
to be cases of illegal logging as most forests containing these
trees are privately-owned. The alerce ranges up to 4,000 years
old and is the second-oldest living species on Earth with only
California's bristlecone pine being older. It is a conifer closely
resembling the coastal redwood of California, and a giant --
often reaching 4 to 5 metres across in diameter. The araucaria,
nicknamed "monkeypuzzle" because of its tangled branches which
swirl around its tree top, are found in the central coastal
range and high in the Andes. They can live more than 2,000 years,
grow up to 50 metres high and over 3 metres in diameter. Botanists
say the araucaria is an archetypal tree as its ancestors date
back 200 million years.
Chile's forests are mostly dominated by southern beeches such
as coihue and roble (Nothofagus), manio (Podocarpus), and broadleaf
evergreen trees like the ulmo (Eucryphlia) and laurel (Laurelia).
Chile's far south includes sub-antarctic, boreal forest dominated
by the coihue and lenga (Nothofagus). There are more than 50
species of trees in Chile's forests, 95 percent are endemic,
and 38 are listed as endangered, vulnerable or rare.
Exotic Forestry
We are the new ecologists of the world, not the old ecologists
who believe in total preservation.
Robert Manne, CEO Savia/Trillium Rio Condor Project
From 1540, when Pedro de Valdivia marched into Chile and set it
up as a colony of Spain, and accelerating in the mid-1800s when
large numbers of immigrants from Europe settled in southern Chile,
all the way to the mid-1900s, tens of thousands of forests were
burned and cleared for agriculture, livestock grazing, and towns.
By 1955, according to a government study, one-third of Chile's
original forests were destroyed.
For many years the native forests have been logged commercially,
but the roots of Chile's modern forestry industry really began
in 1974 when the Pinochet dictatorship began its free market
reforms. The government moved forcefully to establish private
property rights as part of Chile's constitution and gave back
to original owners many of the forests expropriated under the
Agrarian Reform of prior governments. They privatized the forest
industry along with other economic sectors by selling off at
below-cost prices almost all publicly-owned forests and processing
facilities.
The ownership of most of Chile's forest industry was thus
concentrated in a few large companies, a situation that prevails
to this day. For example, the two largest holding companies,
Arauco and CMPC, own 46 percent of the radiata pine plantations
in Chile, 75 percent of pulp production, and are the two largest
producers and exporters of lumber. CMPC also produces 90 percent
of the paper in Chile. Just four Chilean companies account for
more than 70 percent of forest exports, and with another seven
holding companies controlled by foreign capital, they account
for more than 80 percent of forest exports from Chile.
The economic reforms of the Pinochet era also included an
export promotion program that included tax credits, and because
Chile was an economy overwhelmingly dominated by the mining
industry the government intervened in the economy in order to
diversify exports from its bountiful natural resource base.
In 1974, through Decree Law (DL) 701, they gave reimbursement
for up to 75 or 90 percent of the costs of planting trees. These
subsidies have been used almost entirely for establishing the
forest industry's exotic tree plantations - only 4 percent of
the subsidies have gone to small landowners with less than 50
hectares.
Exotic-species tree plantations of monterrey pine and eucalyptus
also grow more than twice as fast in Chile as in their native
lands. This fast biological growth rate and the generous DL
701 subsidies have led to a tremendous rate of increase in the
area of tree plantations, from 200 thousand hectares (one hectare
= 2.47 acres) in 1974 to 2.1 million hectares today. Tree plantations
now supply 90 percent of the wood for Chile's forestry industry.
Yet just one-third of existing tree plantation production capacity
is presently being used, and Chile's wood products association
(CORMA) projects that in twenty years the land area of tree
plantations will double.
More than 80 percent of the enormous quantity of wood from
plantations is to meet an increasing global demand for raw materials
in the form of logs, pulp and wood chips. Forestry exports grew
23.9 percent a year over the last decade and was a record high
US$2.2 billion in 1995. This is more than 56 times its 1973
total of US$39 million. CONAF projects that exports will be
at least US$3 billion by 2010. Forestry products are Chile's
third largest export at 11.8 percent of total exports, and are
shipped to 86 countries, the leading destinations are respectively
Japan, the United States, South Korea, and western Europe.
Multinational timber companies are fast joining Chile's big
timber companies in the forest export boom. While the majority
of Chile's pulp and plantation industry is domestically owned
and operated, major foreign investment in Chilean production
includes New Zealand's Carter Holt Harvey and Fletcher Challenge,
Shell of the Netherlands, and from the United States, Simpson
Timber, International Paper, Scott Paper, CitiBank and two pension
funds, RII-UBS and Xyem. Japan's Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Daio
Paper each have eucalyptus plantations along with joint ventures
with various Chilean companies in the wood chip export business.
Direct multinational logging in native forests includes Cranefield
of Canada, and the Trillium company/Savia investment group of
the US who have a grand-scale project covering 250,000 hectares
of the island of Tierra del Fuego.
A Central Bank of Chile report in late 1995 shows that the
pace of destruction of native forests has more than doubled
since 1984. The report projects that without changes in current
methods of exploitation, Chile's unprotected native forests
may be entirely deforested in 20 years. The Central Bank report
has been verified by independent scientists, the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) and others, but Chile's
government and timber industry continue to discredit the report
and argue that Chile's native forests are actually increasing
because of tree plantations and new growth forests. But those
aren't native forests, they are tree farms and young trees which
might become forest.
Chile has a total land area of 75.5 million hectares. Forest
ecologists estimate that 30 million hectares, or 45 percent
of the country, was originally forested. There are almost 7.5
million hectares of "commercially productive" native forests
left according to official government studies. Among this number,
some forests are near rivers, steep slopes and other inaccessible
places considered protection forests and prohibited from cutting,
so the Central Bank of Chile estimates there are really 6.3
million hectares of native forest that are potentially available
to cut. And a study by Chile's environmental commission says
that half of these forests are degraded. Only 1.4 million hectares
of native forests are protected in Chile's national system of
protected areas (SNASPE), which represents just 11 percent of
SNASPE's overall 13.8 million hectares.
Chile is second to Brazil in forest exports from Latin America,
and according to the UNFAO, the second most deforested country
in Latin America. Destruction of Chile's native forests is also
increasing. The Central Bank of Chile report estimates that
700 thousand hectares or 11 percent of all native forests were
destroyed between 1984 and 1994. Chile's Forestry Action Plan,
a joint government and non-governmental report, projects that
as much as 120 thousand hectares may be destroyed each year
over the next decade -- the equivalent to 21 soccer fields per
hour.
Roots of Destruction
It is silly to leave all of them (native forests) there without
them doing a damn thing. They are not all contributing to biodiversity,
some are not contributing to anything.
Eladio Susaeta, former President of CORMA
The clearing of native forests for agriculture is sharply declining
as most forests left are on unsuitable terrain. But many "campesinos,"
the peasant farmers who live in the countryside, degrade large
areas of forest for livestock grazing and often their animals
overgraze the forest floor and damage the regenerative capacity
of soils. Some campesinos also cut and pull out massive volumes
of fuelwood, an estimated six million cubic meters of fuelwood
are extracted each year from native forests. Chile's timber industry
claims this is the largest source of forest destruction, but studies
show fuelwood is mostly gathered in already degraded forests or
from fallen and standing dead wood.
The biggest sources of native forest destruction are rather
overexploitation for wood chips and clearcutting for tree plantations,
which taken together doesn't just degrade but is completely
destroying forests. The Central Bank report estimates that between
40 to 90 thousand hectares of native forests destroyed each
year are converted to exotic species tree plantations. These
tree plantations cause loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat
for many vulnerable and endangered species, soil erosion and
water pollution. It is also estimated that more than 35,000
campesino families are threatened with displacement by the growth
of tree plantations. Thousands of campesinos have already been
forced to migrate to cities where most have found only unemployment
and the countryside has experienced a profound loss of local
culture. A study in the coastal range of the X Region shows
that 44.8 percent of the tree plantations of that zone were
established following direct substitution of forest.
Timber companies have more than 3 million hectares of already
deforested land available in southern Chile for planting, but
Chile's native forests are an attractive investment: the forests
can be bought cheap, they can be clearcut first for wood chips,
and then they provide fertile soil for conversion to tree plantations.
If the small and medium landowners are not pressured to sell
their land to the timber companies, then often they hire "fly-by-night"
operations to help them illegally cut in their native forests
and sell the logs to wood chip mills. Afterwards, many of these
landowners typically ask the government to subsidize tree plantations
in their now "degraded" forest and then clearcut the remainder
of their forest for wood chips. Chilean forest law allows clearcutting
in non-sloping, degraded forests. Or through a legal loophole,
they request a permit to clearcut for livestock grazing or agriculture,
and then sell their logs for wood chips and request a modification
of the permit for a tree plantation. Many landowners don't even
replant and instead abandon the land after logging.
Because of a lack of resources and political will, CONAF has
little control over the illegal cutting. According to a CODEFF
study, 60 percent of forest law violations end up with no sanction,
fines that are levied for violations are almost always reduced
to low levels in regional courts, and only 7 percent of fines
are ever paid. A University Austral of Valdivia study states
that only one-fifth of logging in Chile's forests are even done
with management plans. Chile's Forestry Action Plan states that
just 5 percent of the exploitation in native forests each year
is done with proper management.
The first stage in the cycle of deforestation, and the primary
incentive for the many small and medium landowners, is selling
native trees for wood chips and fast money: the wood chip mills
don't need the best wood rather they buy almost all of it. According
to CONAF, 87 percent of native forest exports in 1996 were wood
chips. The typical second stage in the deforestation process,
and the primary incentive mainly for the timber companies, is
Chile's forest law allows for the conversion of native forests
to tree plantations and even subsidizes it. Finally, for small
and medium owners there is currently no viable economic alternative:
they are neither trained nor financially motivated to sustainably
manage native forests - there is more money to be made in the
short-term by trashing forests.
The Chip Trade
The Japanese businessmen want to develop land owned by indigenous
people and make some sort of new world. The problem is that we
indigenous people can not survive in such a new world.
A Church Minister from Indonesia's Irian Jaya
Demand for wood chips is increasing pressure on Chile's native
forests. Chile's wood chip sector has grown fast and is now the
third largest exporter of wood chips in the world after the United
States and Australia. Wood chip production rose from 76 thousand
cubic meters in 1986, all from pine plantations, to 2.5 million
cubic meters in 1995 with 62 percent sourced from the native forests.
Almost 95 percent of native forest wood chips go to Japan's pulp
industry. The Japanese companies involved in Chile's chip trade
are Mitsubishi, Itochu, Sumitomo and Marubeni. The strategy of
these trading companies is to secure long-term access to importing
native forest wood chips while being placed at a minimum risk
and responsibility of compliance with national forest laws.
The Japanese trading companies are involved as buyers only.
They currently sell the chips to Japan's Mitsubishi Paper, Daio
Paper, Oji Paper, and Nippon Paper, who then process it into
papers and boards. Through long-term contracts of usually 7
to 10 years, as well as some investment, they have set up joint
ventures with Chilean wood chip producer - exporter companies.
There are five, INVERHART, Forestal Del Sur, COMACO, ASTEX,
and Magallanica Industrial, who together control 98 percent
of exports. These producer-exporter companies buy much of their
chips from small producer operations that are set up solely
to produce the chips. Both the producer-exporters and producers
buy timber from the small and medium landowners and timber companies.
Mitsubishi is the only Japanese importer involved at each level
of the chip trade: buyer, paper producer through Mitsubishi
Paper, and through ownership of ASTEX they are directly responsible
for 9 percent of Chile's chip production and export.
Japan imports more than 80 percent of the total volume of
wood chips produced worldwide. Their demand for the short fibre
from native forest hardwoods is to make higher quality papers
and boards. While their demand for softwood chips such as pine
has not changed much in the last decade, the volume of hardwood
chips exported to Japan has tripled. Wood chips are responsible
for two-thirds of the global trade in raw wood and because of
population growth and expansion of the industry to other Asian
countries, industry analysts predict the demand for native hardwood
chips will be even higher the next 15 years. Already, Chile
exports a small amount of chips to Taiwan and Korea.
The Japanese paper industry continues to buy up the world's
remaining cheap native forest trees while bracing for the future
by investing in tree plantations. A Japanese industry study
projects that by the year 2010, they will replace more than
one-third of their existing demand for native forest pulp with
tree plantations. Japanese companies already own 80,000 hectares
of plantations in other countries, with 40,000 in Chile, and
the Japanese industry report projects an increase of their global
plantations to at least 600,000 hectares to meet future needs.
While this is preferable to buying more native hardwoods, many
of these future tree plantations will surely be schemes to convert
native forests.
Currently, 20 percent of Chile's wood chips comes from eucalyptus,
and Chile's supply of eucalyptus for chip exports is expected
to double in the year 2000. Industry prefers eucalyptus over
native hardwoods: it is uniform which makes it easier to process,
while native hardwoods comprise different species with varying
degrees of density. This rise in eucalyptus chips will help
lower demand for wood chips from native forests, but not replace
them. Wood chip mills will not stop buying native forest logs
until Chile changes its policies, Japan's demand lowers, or
there are no more forests to waste.
However, Chile's wood chip export industry is temporarily
depressed. In 1996, the total volume of Chile's wood chip exports
dropped 28 percent to its lowest volume since 1991. Instead,
Japan bought more chips from other countries. The present slowdown
in Chile's wood chip sector is a good opportunity to reevaluate
its contribution to Chile. Defensores del Bosque Chileno (DBCh)
recently commissioned Marcel Claude, the Central Bank of Chile's
former Chief of Environmental Accounting, to do an economic
study of Chile's wood chip sector. The bottom line is: while
native forest wood chip exports have experienced tremendous
growth and profits since its inception, it has no importance
to Chile's economy and, in fact, over the long-term is damaging
the economy, society and environment.
No Value Added
We must not let the environment stand in the way of economic
growth.
Chile's President Eduardo Frei
Table 1: Contribution of Native Forest Wood Chips to Chile's
Economy
Native Wood Chips Forestry
1995 Total Earnings US$ 138. 5 million US$ 2.2 billion
Export Growth Rate 154.9 % 20.8 %
(1989-95)
% of Total Exports 0.73 % 11.9 %
(1988-95)
% of GDP 0.05 % 3.05 %
(1988-95)
% National Employment 0.01 % 2.13 %
(1991-95)
Corporate Net Profit 73 % 58.02 %
(1988-95)
Chile's native forest wood chip exports have scored impressive
earnings, US$138.5 million in 1995, this is 60 percent of the
wood chip sector total earnings. More impressive is the average
rate of growth of Chile's native forest wood chip exports, a
spectacular 154.9 percent. Native forest wood chips though meant
very little to the overall Chilean economy during this same
period, only 0.73 percent of Chile's total exports, compared
to total forestry exports which was 11.9 percent. The native
forest sector was only 0.05 percent of Chile's Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), the forestry sector 3.05 percent. In simpler
terms, if you were to reduce all of Chile's economic income
for this period to 100 dollars, native forest wood chips were
responsible for a fraction equivalent to approximately 1/2000.
Societal benefits of the native wood chip industry is also
marginal. It is responsible for 593 direct industry-related
jobs, and another 2,076 indirect jobs, out of Chile's total
national labor force of 5 million. In percentages, the native
forest wood chip sector is responsible for 0.01 of national
employment, the forestry sector only 2.13 percent. According
to the balance sheets of Chilean wood chip companies, 73 percent
of earnings after costs went to the companies as straight profit,
17 percent went to worker salaries, and only 10 percent was
re-invested. Clearly, the wood chip companies are not putting
a lot back into the local economy in relation to what they earn.
Perhaps most important to Chile is the opportunity cost of
native forest wood chip exports. If Chile continues to destroy
its native forests it will cause other sectors of the economy
to decline or disappear. Marcel Claude's study compared the
value of native wood chips to two other fast growing, established
sectors of Chile's economy that utilize native forests, tourism
and the manufacture of furniture and furniture parts.
Table 2: Economic Opportunity Cost of Native Forest Wood Chip
Exports to Chile
Tourism Ecotourism Ecotourism Furniture Native Chips
Regions 8-10
Earnings in Relation to Native Chips (1988-94)
66.4 7.4 3.6 5.7 1.0
Employment in Relation to Native Chips (1991-94)
322.7 14.6 1.0
Investment in Relation to Native Chips (1989-94)
59.3 5.4 1.0
According to statistics from SERNATUR, Chile's national tourism
office, the tourism sector earns a whopping 66 times more than
native chips. This revenue is of course also widely distributed
among hotels, restaurants, transportation such as buses and
airlines, souvenir shops, travel agencies, and more.
Ecotourism is the fastest growing sector of tourism in Chile.
According to CONAF, foreign visitors to Chile's national parks
have increased 20 percent a year since 1990, and there were
almost one million visitors in 1995 - more than 60 percent of
all visitors to Chile. In order to approximate the potential
tourism revenue that could be lost if Chile doesn't protect
native forests, the study sought to define how much of Chile's
tourist revenue is due to ecotourism. It took the number of
visitors to national parks as an indicator of the number of
tourists motivated to come to Chile because of the natural landscape,
and half the daily average of what they spend. Claude's study
estimates that ecotourism revenue can be 7 times more than native
chips. Ecotourism revenue for Chile's southern regions XIII
-X, the most important areas for native forest wood chips and
also the least protected forests, can be 3.6 times that of native
forest wood chips and almost 50 percent of the total ecotourism
revenue in Chile.
Chile's export of raw wood plummeted in 1996, while the export
of value-added wood products dramatically increased. Currently
just 9 percent of wood extracted from native forests goes to
these products, but it is here where the potential of sustainable
forest management is: value added products utilize less and
better quality wood, but because it requires more processing,
it can create more jobs and revenue for local communities and
pay landowners more than 3 times the money per log that they
get from wood chippers. If Chile were to subsidize sustainable
management and provide economic support for value-added products,
it may be possible for example to have furniture manufacturers
in native forest areas. The study shows Chile's furniture industry
has a much greater contribution to society than native forest
wood chips, the GDP is 5.7 times more, the sector re-invests
5 times as much, and employs 15 times as many people.
Finally, there are what economists call external costs, environmental
and public health impacts and their mitigation, which are typically
not included in the costs of production. And the impact of the
depletion of natural resources on future stocks, which worldwide
is now included in the economic definition of "capital."
The production and exportation of native forest wood chips
leads to clearcutting and extensive deforestation which causes
severe impacts to soil. In Chile, 62.6 percent of the land is
now threatened with desertification, while soil erosion is affecting
45.5 percent of the land. Only 5.7 percent of the land area
of Chile is suitable for agriculture, and water quality of many
lakes and rivers is poor. Claude's study found that in order
to begin restoring soils damaged by exploitation of native forests
to supply wood chips, it would cost 90 percent of the revenue
earned by the wood chip companies from 1988-94. Considering
this cost, the contribution of native forest wood chips to Chile's
economy is 0.016 percent.
Eight Ways We Can Save Chile's Native Forests
Every form of life is unique, warranting respect regardless
of its worth to man, and, to accord other organisms such recognition,
man must be guided by a moral code of action.
World Charter for Nature, adopted by United Nations General Assembly
1982
The value of the native forest wood chip business to Chile's economy
is low, and in comparison to the economic benefits from native
forest protection for other possible alternative uses ought to
be considered an enemy to Chile's economy and society. The destructive
impacts of logging for wood chips makes the activity an ecological
crime. Japan for cheap pulp, and Chile for quick cash, is destroying
an irreplaceable part of the patrimony of Chile and the world.
Chile's neo-liberal economic policies are almost fundamentalist
in the belief of a free market and its low environmental regulations
and enforcement are considered a comparative advantage in the
all-important international trade. The government's policy is
seemingly to look the other way -- while corporations pollute
and destroy the land, air and water. Furthermore, the benefits
of the economic boom in Chile is still the old scenario of the
rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. In 1970, 20
percent of Chileans were in poverty, today 30 percent of the
population is officially in poverty. The creeping social and
environmental malaise is not hard to spot in Chile. Check out
Santiago's smoggy skies, look into the eyes of the poor, ride
by central and southern Chile's clearcuts and tree plantations.
A new development model is needed here, not the one promoted
by the world's financiers, but the one Chile agreed upon at
the UN Earth Summit five years ago. The change in politics from
military dictatorship to democracy encouraged much optimism
in 1989, most Chileans thought it would mean greater attention
to environmental and social problems. In fact, Chile has continued
the pro-business policies of the Pinochet regime and its approach
to these issues reflects it. Our challenge is to build a conscience
in all aspects of Chilean society, from the small native forest
owner to the Presidents of corporations to President Eduardo
Frei. Defensores del Bosque Chileno believes international support
for its campaign can be part of the solution. Here are eight
ways we can save Chile's native forests:
1) Wood Chip Economic Conversion Program. A global campaign
is needed to persuade Japan to set a goal of eliminating its
use of native hardwoods for paper and cardboard products, and
instead: increase the use of wastepaper and alternative non-woody
fibers such as kenaf, hemp, and straw, develop eucalyptus plantations
in a socially and ecologically appropriate manner, and implement
source reduction strategies and alternative technologies in
order to lower consumption of paper products.
Chile needs to be persuaded to ban, or put a sustainable limit
on the amount of wood chips that can be sourced from native
forests, strengthen its enforcement of forest management laws,
place a high tax on wood chips and other unprocessed natural
resource export products, and develop a sustainable forest management
program for high value-added wood and non-wood forest products
to give native forest owners new sources of income.
2) Native Forest Law and Institutions. Chile's Congress has
debated a proposed Native Forest Law for more than five years
now, but the present form still weakens existing forest law.
This bill should be scrapped and a new national consultation
ought to begin on developing a Native Forest Law -- this time
with greater participation from all sectors of society.# The
emphasis of the new law needs to be a ban or sustainable limit
on wood chips from native forests, preservation of primary old-growth
forests, a larger investment in sustainable management of secondary
forests, and a ban on substitution of native forests with exotic-species
tree plantations. A tax on exports of wood chips and other unprocessed
wood exports could be a way to get more funding for forest protection,
while it would also encourage the forest industry to diversify.
Subsidies for tree planting should continue, but only for programs
that restore native forest cover or rehabilitate degraded agricultural
land with native trees. A new law should substantially increase
CONAF's annual budget. Defensores del Bosque Chileno also believes
the conservation functions and stewardship of the National Wildlands
System (SNASPE) would be more effective if it were removed from
CONAF and made an independent department under the Ministry
of Public Lands.
3) National Conservation Strategy. Chile is a signatory to
the UN Convention on Biodiversity and urgent action is needed
by Chile to meet its commitment. CONAF for example has already
identified more than 30 sites that urgently need protection,
while 35 percent of known ecosystem types are not represented
in SNASPE. 88 percent of SNASPE is in Patagonia regions XI and
XII, and most of the rest is desert in the far north. The siempreverde
or evergreen forest type, a coastal rainforest found from the
Bio Bio river in central Chile to the Taitao Peninsula in northern
Patagonia, contains the highest biodiversity of Chile's forests,
but it is also the least protected forest in Chile and the most
endangered by logging activities.
As part of a Native Forest Law, and perhaps a new Wildlands
Protection Law, Chile should develop a comprehensive plan for
preserving its remaining old-growth forests and unique ecosystems.
As a first step, a National Conservation Strategy (NCS) is needed.
An NCS would include mapping areas that should be protected
and defining a land-use plan for a system of national and private
parks, reserves, multiple-use buffer zones, and wildlife corridors.
A Biodiversity Protection Fund should be created to provide
financial assistance for public and private ecological preservation.
4) Sustainable Energy Policy. While it is not a primary cause
of destruction, extraction of firewood does exert tremendous
pressure on native forests. 60 percent of the industry and public
service sectors in southern Chile still use fuelwood for energy,
and one-third of Chilean households nationwide use fuelwood
for heating and cooking in both urban and rural areas. Through
programs that assist the use of alternative, energy-efficient
technologies, the government could help businesses and people
save both money and energy. And through a program for utilizing
tree plantations to supply fuelwood, the use of fuelwood from
native forests would drop dramatically and create jobs. Further,
Chile's existing energy sources are polluting and environmentally
destructive: a sustainable energy policy tapping into renewable
energy sources such as solar energy, wind power, geo-thermal,
bio-mass and tidal power should be feasible on Chile's diverse
landscape.
5) Environmental Protection in Free Trade. Chile is making
a great effort to enter into free trade agreements all over
the world, within Latin America, with the European Union, Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
A major goal of such agreements is to promote faster economic
growth by making trade and investment easier and more profitable
for business - and a by-product is easier access to natural
resources for multinational companies and intensification of
native forest destruction. In Chile, more than 87 percent of
exports are from four natural resources: minerals, agriculture,
forests, and fishing. Economists estimate that new foreign investment
contributes to about one-third of Chile's annual growth rate
of 7 percent and most of that investment is for the exploitation
of natural resources. DBCh urges that free trade agreements
must be crafted in a way that safeguards and even strengthens
environmental protection. National and local environmental laws
should be allowed to be stronger than international environmental
laws, and to be considered a "necessary" barrier to free trade.
6) Southern Hemisphere Gondwana Forest Sanctuary and a Park
at the End of the World. In 1994, when Trillium's plans for
Tierra del Fuego were announced, Defensores del Bosque proposed
a forest sanctuary similar to the whale sanctuary established
by international treaty for south of Parallel 40 degrees. This
idea has since gathered support and we are now helping form
an international alliance of non-governmental organizations
to help establish a Southern Hemisphere Gondwana Forest Reserve
System, a system of parks and reserves for all temperate forests
south of Parallel 40 degrees in Chile, Argentina, New Zealand
and Australia. We propose that by international treaty, a Gondwana
Forest Sanctuary is created to reunite these forests, preserving
all the primary forests in parks and allowing only sustainable
uses in secondary forests of public reserves and private lands.
The Trillium corporation has been planning their Rio Condor
forestry project in Chilean and Argentinean Tierra del Fuego
- home to the world's southernmost forests. Their forest management
plan has been called unsustainable by three separate scientific
studies, and Chile's Supreme Court ruled in March 1997 that
the government's approval of the project was "illegal and arbitrary."
As a first step toward a Gondwana Sanctuary, DBCh and Greenpeace
Chile have launched a campaign for a Park at the End of the
World. This park would, like the Gondwana Sanctuary, include
all the old-growth forests of Trillium's Rio Condor property
and the entire Magallanes region south of Parallel 55 degrees,
while allowing careful, sustainable forestry in all secondary
forests.
7) Support Defenders of the Chilean Forest. Defensores del
Bosque Chileno is a non-governmental organization whose mission
is to mobilize and educate the public for the protection of
Chile's native forests. We began in 1993, its major goals are:
establish a moratorium on the export of wood chips made from
native forests, preserve remaining old-growth forests, and conserve
and restore secondary forests. Current projects include:
Voces del Bosque. Our seasonal newspaper, funded by the Weeden
Foundation, prints information and news which alerts supporters
and prompts authorities in the country to take concrete actions
for the protection of native forests. It is distributed to 4,000
people, including our members, government officials, parliamentarians,
judges, scientists, journalists, and other public opinion shapers.
Bosqueduca. Our forest education program, funded the last
two years by the Fund of the Americas, is directed at children
and youth. It helps create appreciation of Chile's forests through
a secondary school curriculum and materials that include videos,
books, posters and manuals which emphasize the concepts of ecosystems,
conservation, sustainability, and alternative uses of forests.
The pilot program was implemented in seven communities of southern
Chile last year and was judged successful by Chile's Ministry
of Education. This year we expanded to schools of central Chile
and began a forest ecotourism program for adults and youth.
Sustainability Program. A project set-up to promote sustainable
management in secondary forests. DBCh will compile and analyze
existing experiences in sustainable management of Chile's native
forests and the different silvicultural practices which add
value to forest products, and then distribute the results to
forest technicians and professionals. Second, a training program
in sustainable management and the development of new products
will be organized for small native forest owners. Finally, we
will create a support network for forest owners and institutions
that seek alternatives in forest management.
Lobbying, Media Campaign and other initiatives. We have a
legal team developing and promoting alternatives to the draft
Native Forest Law in Chile's Congress. DBCh often participates
in meetings about the native forests with Chile's Congress,
lobbys key leaders in government and society, and hosts seminars
to inform the public about legislative needs.
This year, DBCh commissioned an economic study of the wood
chip industry, and a report on the potential impact of NAFTA
on Chile's forests. We are publishing a photo exhibit-format
book dramatizing Chile's native forest crisis. We are constantly
informing the public through the national and international
media with numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, and
frequent interviews on radio and television. Educational commercials
about the native forest crisis have been placed on Chilean television
and radio and advertisements in periodicals.
DBCh is a member of the Alliance for Chile's Forests, a coalition
of 30 Chilean organizations also concerned about the future
of the native forests. DBCh has a grassroots network of Native
Forest Action Groups in all 12 regions of Chile. And DBCh is
involved in private initiatives for land conservation; last
year we formed a group of 100 people that successfully bought
and established the Alto Huemul Nature Sanctuary, a 35,000 hectare
property in central Chile that includes 3,000 hectares of rare
roble forest.
International Campaign. Over the last two years, DBCh steadily
increased international involvement in the protection of Chile's
forests. We developed an international network of supporters
with whom we periodically communicate by fax and e-mail. We
have been active participants in international conferences,
organized joint campaign actions with non-governmental organizations
of other countries, lobbied in the US Congress and United Nations,
and produced and distributed educational materials written in
English.
8) Write Letters: A letter could only help! Please write letters
expressing your various concerns about Chile's native forest
crisis, and also urge that: 1) the government enact a ban on
wood chips made from native forests, and 2) they re-write the
draft Native Forest Law by soliciting and listening to input
from all sectors of society.
Jimmy Langman is a journalist based in
Chile. He can be reached via email.
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