Temperate rainforests are extremely rare, originally covering
about 0.2 percent of the Earth's land area. Greatly exceeding all
other terrestrial ecosystems, including tropical rainforests, in
their density of biomass, some temperate rainforests contain more
than one thousand tonnes of living matter per hectare. They are
considered to be the most biologically diverse terrestrial
ecosystems outside of the tropical rainforests. But much of this
rich diversity of species threatens to be lost before it is even
documented by science.
Three-quarters of the world's temperate rainforests, an estimated
five million hectares, are on the Pacific coasts of Canada, the
United States and Chile. Ninety-five percent of the United States'
temperate rainforest has been destroyed, while in B.C. and
southern Chile approximately forty percent still remains in each
area.
Clear-cut logging on a vast scale is rapidly foreclosing the
opportunity to preserve these forests. The remaining pristine
areas are as much coveted by trans-national forest companies in
Chile as in B.C.. Chilean old-growth native forests (including all
types of temperate forests, not just rainforest) are being
destroyed at the rate of 122,000 hectares per year, or about 10
soccer fields every half-hour.
At this rate Chile's 4.75 million hectares of unprotected, native
forests would be eliminated in just 39 years and in even less time
if the rate of logging continues to accelerate. Additionally, the
most ecologically valuable stands ~ because they are the most
commercially viable ~ that always fall first.
The destruction is not only ecological, but social. Just as in
B.C., lack of local control over the land and its resources is at
the heart of the problem. The Mapuche natives' symbolic land
recuperations in 1992 were met with the detention of one hundred
people by the police. According to one native Mapuche "if we lose
the land, we lose our language and slowly we will also disappear."
With little participation of local people in decisions regarding
the management of their natural resources, sustainable
community-based alternatives ~ inclusive of the indigenous people
~ are displaced by the interests of trans-national corporations.
Does this rush to ecological monotony and social dislocation have
a corresponding economic benefit? No. The paradox is the
squandering of the economic potential of Chilean forests as one of
the world's richest ecosystems is reduced to wood-chips by foreign
capital and state subsidies. Foreign multinationals, which don't
see the value of the forest until it is cut down and don't have a
stake in maintaining its sustainability for the local people,
twice rob them of the economic potential of their land: first, as
only a fraction of the forest's economic potential is utilized,
and second, as much of this wealth escapes the community and even
the country.
The sustainable alternative is a locally-controlled forest
industry which transforms the wealth of the forest into valuable
forest products, not wood-chips, and guarantees the forest's
ecological integrity. This ensures that the economic benefits stay
in the community and will continue to stay for future generations.
Forestry legislation currently under discussion in Chile, while
necessary for the rational management of native forests, has some
sections which threaten to exacerbate rather than alleviate the
ailing health of Chilean forests. This law, Recovery of Native
Forest and Promotion of Forest Management, would privatize many of
the functions of Chile's National Forestry Corporation (CONAF),
rather than strengthen its regulatory effectiveness. It would
stack a forestry consultative committee primarily with industry
representatives and foresters to the exclusion of indigenous
peoples, environmentalists, forestry workers, and scientists. And
it would officially authorize the continued substitution of native
forests with plantations of the fast- growing Monterey pine and
Eucalyptus, which has long been carried out informally with tacit
state approval. Such official sanction for the chipping of
pristine forests to make way for plantations makes little sense
given the three million hectares of deforested land that is
already available for plantation forestry.
What you can do
Please send letters to Chile (and copies to Project WILD, 20 Water
Street, Vancouver, B.C, V6B 1A4, fax: 604-683-8229, ph:
604-669-9453) urging: modification of the forest law to eliminate
the proposed authorization for the substitution of native forests
with exotic-species plantations; promotion of a
locally-controlled, ecologically-sustainable forest industry which
rejects clear-cut logging and promotes value-added industry; an
intensive silviculture program on deforested land to reduce
pressure on old-growth native forests; a moratorium on all logging
of native forests while an adequate inventory can be done;
preservation of more native forest in National Parks. Emphasize
that temperate forests are a global heritage.
Since Chile is having elections this fall, send or fax letters
generically to Excelentisimo Se$or Presidente, Republica de
Chile, Casa de la Moneda, Santiago, Chile. Fax 011-562-697-3262.
Se$or Presidente del Senado, Senado de la Republica, Valparaiso,
Chile. Fax 011-563-223-2654.