Erosion of Native Forests Continues in Chile
7/25/99
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Title: ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Erosion of Native Forests Continues
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: July 25, 1999
Byline: Gustavo Gonzalez
SANTIAGO, Jul 25 (IPS) - Native forests in Chile continue to be
destroyed a result of Government policies that permit logging
exploitation, while a law intended to protect timber resources
remains bogged down in Parliament after eight years, official data
shows.
According to the land registry data on natural resources,
presented this month by the National Forestry Department (Conaf),
between the years of 1994-1998, some 25,000 hectares of coniferous
trees were lost in the regions of Araucania and Los Lagos.
Those two regions, which cover an area 600 to 1,000 kilometres
south of Santiago, hold the greatest forest reserves in the
country, which are exploited by a variety of logging companies,
both Chilean-owned and transnationals.
Marcel Claude, a specialist in natural resources, says the
Conaf data indicated that the deterioration of native forests was
increasingly due to exploitation by logging companies and less to
the collection of firewood by poor peasants.
The small and large-scale depletion of forests for fuel
traditionally has been labelled the main cause of deforestation in
Chile but for years, environmentalists have warned that the
greatest danger in the future was the logging industry.
For Claude, that threat has already fully materialised, since
the greatest loss of native trees in the two regions assessed by
Conaf has been recorded in rural communities where industrial
projects have been installed.
Ecological groups say that Chile is the world's third-biggest
producer of wood chips, created via the systematic destruction of
valuable coniferous species, like oak and a variety of native
species.
How many native trees exist in Chile and at what rate are they
being destroyed or replanted? This question is at the centre of a
heated debate, and the answers, one way or another, depend on the
criteria and methodology used to address the issue.
Claude himself was sacked by the Central Bank in 1996, where he
ran the environmental accounting system, after he released a study
asserting that coniferous forests would disappear in Chile within
the next 30 years.
The economist's predictions caused a stir and were termed
''alarmist'' both within government circles and by the Wood
Corporation (Corma), an entity encompassing the logging and forest
industries.
Corma dismissed Claude's forecast on the basis of a survey
carried out by Conaf throughout the country, according to which
the surface area of coniferous forests increased between 1985 and
1994 from 7.5 million to 13.4 million hectares.
According to the business group, the 1994 statistics include
3.8 million hectares of very young trees, the result of either
human reforestation efforts or natural reproductive processes.
The group hoped to use those figures to discredit the claims of
environmentalists, who accuse the logging industry of eliminating
coniferous trees to plant exotic species with rapid growth rates -
such as the Australian eucalyptus and various types of pine trees.
''A crude and simple comparison of statistics (from 1985 to
1994) is improper, above all because the information from the land
registry has been interpreted using methodologies and definitions
that are different from those used in the past,'' cautioned
Claude.
''The increase cited by Corma exists only on paper, and what
has happened is simply a change of definitions that has allowed it
to exaggerate the figures considerably,'' added the economist, who
currently heads the Land Foundation.
Included in this ''growth'' of native forests are shrubbery and
other flora that cannot be considered trees, since they derive
from plant species less than two metres in height,
environmentalists say.
Similarly, 800,000 hectares are so sparse that they can hardly
be categorised as forests, say groups like the Defenders of
Chilean Forests, a network of 35 non-governmental organisations.
According to Claude, the application of a strict concept of
native forests indicates that between 1985 and 1994, the total
surface area covered by this resource did not expand, but in fact
diminished from 7.5 million hectares to 5.2 million.
Economists say the latest land registry data from two regions
indicates that this process is continuing at an alarming rate,
while in Parliament, the Native Forest Law has been dormant since
1991, unable to overcome the pressure against it from logging
companies. (FIN/IPS/ggr/ag/en/ks/mk/99)
Origin: Montevideo/ENVIRONMENT-CHILE/