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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Chile Faces Rainforest Dilemma as Deforestation Set to Double

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

11/03/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Chile is poised to double its rate of deforestation with one huge

temperate rainforest destroying mega-project, courtesy of the

dinosaur of timber companies, otherwise known as Boise Cascade. Yet,

there may be a ray of hope in that an emerging coalition of business

interests and environmentalists realizes that Chile's "forests are a

lot more valuable to Chile's economy left uncut than exported as raw

wood to North America." This is usually the case. Shockingly, this

huge project was approved without an environmental study being done

that covered the entire project area -- including leaving out the

surrounding forest region that is to be harvested. This highly

questionable project approval has been challenged and a ruling is

expected soon.

g.b.

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Title: Chile faces rainforest dilemma

Industries that co-exist with the ecosystem are clashing with

large-scale logging plans

Source: Special to The Globe and Mail

Date: November 2, 2000

Byline: JIMMY LANGMAN

PUERTO MONTT, CHILE -- Every year ecotourists from around the world

are drawn to southern Chile's Lake District and northern Patagonia.

The region boasts Andean mountains, vast stands of temperate

rainforest, rapid rivers, volcanoes and turquoise lakes. It's a

perfect place for hiking, kayaking and fly fishing.

The area is also ideal for salmon farming. In less than a decade,

Chile has become the world's second-largest producer and exporter of

salmon. Now the U.S. multinational Boise Cascade Corp. has new plans

for the district: a controversial project to build what would be the

world's largest timber mill in the middle of the region, a project

four times larger than current logging ventures in Chile and one that

could endanger rare old-growth forest.

The tourism and salmon industries, which together employ about 55,000

people in the region, have joined forces with environmental groups to

try to stop the $180-million (U.S.) port-and-mill project, known as

Cascada Chile. The project would double the country's exports of

native-forest wood products. Critics say it would also double the

rate of deforestation in a nation that can ill afford it.

"This company . . . wants to destroy our forests. Our forests are a

lot more valuable to Chile's economy left uncut than exported as raw

wood to North America," said Mauricio Fierro, president of Geo

Austral, an environmental group based in Puerto Montt, capital of the

Lakes District.

There was a time when such views would have been rejected outright by

Chile's business community. But Cascada Chile has provoked a sea

change in attitudes. The effort to preserve the country's dwindling

temperate rainforests has many allies in the business community,

whose members agree that protecting the native forest makes long-term

economic sense.

"In this region we are selling nature, and Cascada Chile represents

practically the death of tourism," said Rolando Soto, of Puerto

Montt's Chamber of Tourism.

"We need to decide what is most important for the economy of this

zone. Cascada Chile represents a shortsighted view. In terms of jobs,

tourism employs a lot more people."

Only 30 metres from the proposed mill site at Ilque Bay, a few

kilometres from Puerto Montt, the Patagonia Salmon Farming Co. has

been farming and exporting salmon for more than a decade.

Owner Hans Kossmann worries that possible pollution from ships toting

logs to the plant would ruin his business. "Water quality is the

essence of our business," he said, adding that more needs to be known

about the impact of deforestation on watersheds.

Cascada Chile would create only about 200 jobs but would annually

produce and export up to 114 thousand cubic metres of wood chips as

well as 540 million square metres of oriented strand board (wood

chips glued together, similar to plywood). That's the equivalent of

866,000 telephone poles, according to one estimate.

Environmentalists say this sort of voracious output would speed the

destruction of the most biologically diverse region in Chile, home to

one of the world's last two extensive temperate rainforests. The

other is in decline in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and

Canada. Temperate rainforests are rare, ecologists note, appearing in

less than 0.2 per cent of Earth's land area.

Despite significant public and political opposition, Chile's national

environmental agency (known by its Spanish acronym, CONAMA) approved

Cascada Chile's environmental impact study.

That approval was challenged by environmental groups, whose lawyers

filed a complaint under the Canada-Chile Agreement on Environmental

Co-operation, part of the free-trade agreement signed by the two

countries in 1997. Under the pact, which is modeled after the North

American free-trade deal, each signatory country is committed to

enforcing its own environmental laws -- something that the

environmental groups argue was not done in this case.

Chilean law requires an environmental study be done on the entire

area of influence of a project, but CONAMA looked only at Cascada

Chile's planned port-and-plant site, rather than including the

surrounding forest region, the groups say. A ruling on the challenge

is expected soon.

Doug Bartels, public relations co-ordinator for Boise Cascade, calls

the environmental challenge a "desperate and futile measure."

"It would be difficult to imagine that Canadians would have any

involvement or desire to overrule decisions made by the people and

government of Chile regarding their own country," he added.

Even if the ruling favours the environmentalists, it will not have

the power to force a government agency to act in a particular way.

But a lawyer for one of the groups says it could push Cascada Chile

into conducting a new environmental study.

"It would show a lack of respect for Canada and the international

community if the government does not do anything at all if we win,"

said lawyer Jose Ignacio Pinochet. "It would be practically

impossible for CONAMA to allow [the project] to go forward with their

existing environmental study."

Meanwhile, Mr. Bartels said the timetable for the project, a joint

venture with a Chilean company, Maderas Condor, hasn't been worked

out.

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