Armesto et al LUP 2010.pdf - IEB

154 J.J. Armesto et al. / Land Use Policy 27 (2010) 148–160Fig. 5. Expansion of commercial forestry plantations (mostly Pinus radiata andEucalyptus globulus) in Chile. Points are accumulated area planted; bars are the areaplanted per year. The arrow indicates the year (1974) when a Government Law (701)began to subsidize the cost of planting. The slope of the regression line for the periodfrom 1944 to 1973 is 18, after 1974 the regression slope increased to 80 showingthe accelerating effect of the subsidy. Both regressions are statistically significant(p < 0.01).water sources. Indeed, by 1910; Federico Albert, a German foresterhired by the Chilean government to assess the extent of soil loss andprovide advice on how control the problem, introduced the plantingof fast-growing tree species, most prominently two exotic trees,Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus spp. to restore vegetation cover andprevent soil erosion. These successful pilot experiences promptedthe Chilean Forest Service to start large-scale plantations in publiclands with the aim of controlling erosion.With the introduction of fast-growing timber species originatedfrom North America and Australia and the establishment of professionalforestry schools, we entered the industrial age. Duringthe second half of the 20th century, the Chilean timber industryshifted gradually away from harvesting native trees to concentrateon commercial plantations of P. radiata and Eucalyptus. Plantationsbegan on public land in the early 1940s at a rate of 3000 ha per year(Toro and Gessel, 1999), and continued through the 1960s. Sincethe early 1970s, a State subsidy covered up to 75% of the costs ofclearing, planting and thinning promoted plantations by privatelandowners. This subsidy, along with trade liberalization policies(such as the removal of the log export ban, Niklitschek, 2006), providedthe incentive to develop a powerful forest industry, followedby the expansion of plantations by private corporations. Overall,subsidized plantation rates quadrupled (Fig. 5), spreading rapidlyfrom central to southern Chile. With the aid of satellite images,Echeverria et al. (2006) estimated that native forest cover was lostat a rate of 4.5% per year in the area of Rio Maule-Cobquecura (36 ◦ S),due mostly to the expansion of exotic tree plantations. Native forestcover declined from 21% in 1975 to 7% in 2000. Similarly, Cisternaset al. (2001) provided a landscape analysis for the San Pedro watershed(36 ◦ 51 ′ S), based on aerial photographs, that yielded a forestloss rate of 3.4% per year, with a decline in native forest cover from70.1% in 1943 to 12.6% in 1994. Plantations substituted extensiveareas of second-growth native forests, as the subsidy did not discriminatebetween plantations established on abandoned farmlandand those replacing degraded forest cover (Lara and Veblen, 1993).In four provinces of central Chile (Fig. 6) commercial plantations ofexotic pines and eucalypts became the main land cover type, coveringnearly 2.5 million hectares. Remaining native forests in theseregions are represented mainly by degraded second growth stands(Fig. 6). Analysis of satellite images from the central valley aroundValdivia (40 ◦ S) showed that 75% of farmland was substituted byplantations in the recent decades (Hernández et al., in preparation),Fig. 6. Current vegetation-cover types in four central Chilean provinces, representingthe climatic transition from Mediterranean to temperate forests. Datafrom CONAF-CONAMA-BIRF (1999). White shading = farmland (14–30%); stippled= shrublands (8–74%); light gray = industrial plantations of exotic trees (5–29%);dark gray = second-grow or degraded native forest (7–28%); black = old-grow or latesuccessional native forest (0–3%).which indicates that these trends were driven by the high value ofplantation forestry in relation to traditional agriculture. Plantationsare now the main source of fiber for a strong paper-mill industry,with pulp and cellulose becoming major export products of Chileanindustrial forestry (INFOR, 2005).New drivers of land use changePlantation forestry is presently the second most importantindustry in Chile, at the same time that Chile has become the sixthmajor exporter of cellulose and the third major exporter of woodchips worldwide (CEPAL, 2005). Consequently, large volumes oflumber are required to meet the annual targets for woodchip exportand to feed local pulp mills. These market forces are a powerful currentdriver of the southward spread of eucalypt plantations. Thus,the area planted each year continues to expand (Fig. 7). This trendcontradicts the argument that “fiber farms”, as these fast-growingplantations have become known, can “relieve” the extractive pressureon native forests. It is true that forest industry in Chile haslargely given up the exploitation of native forests to concentrate onplantations of exotic trees, and moderate increases in vegetationcover can be inferred from recent national inventories (CONAF-CONAMA-BIRF, 1999). This inference is born from evidence thatremaining native forests are predominantly restricted to parks andprotected land (steep slopes, riparian habitats) and the substitutionof native forests by plantations is presently unacceptable underFig. 7. The number of hectares of Pinus radiata plus Eucalyptus globulus plantedper year during the past 30 years in south-central Chile. The increasing trend isstatistically significant (r 2 = 0.317, p < 0.01). Source: INFOR, 2005.