Tree Farming and Forest Conservation in Chile

Do Replacement Forests Leave Any Originals Behind

Bibliographic Data

ID12163003
AuthorsRoger Alex Clapp (Simon Fraser University, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume14
Issue4
Pages341-356
Publication date2001-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociety & Natural Resources (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0894-1920 • E-ISSN: 1521-0723
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08941920119176
OpenAlexW2091707864
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Advocates of plantation forestry assert that tree farms "relieve the pressure" on natural forests. This article examines the assumptions implicit in the argument that expanding replacement forests will help preserve native forest ecosystems, and considers their validity in Chile, one of the nations most advanced in the transition from old-growth to plantation forestry. Exotic plantation forestry in Chile surpassed native forestry in production volumes in the 1960s, and has captured markets formerly supplied by Chile's native hardwoods. The economic pressure on the native forest, however, has been not relieved but exacerbated, because of the emergence of an international (mainly Japanese) market for low-value hardwood. In a world of plantations, native forests are valuable only during the lag between plantation establishment and maturation. Paradoxically, replacement forests may increase the vulnerability of native forests by relegating them to the role of a stopgap supply, alternating between overexploitation and abandonment

Agroforestry · Biology · Ecosystem · Forest ecology · Forest management · Forest restoration · Geography · Native forest · Overexploitation · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Environmental Science · Ecology · Forestry

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