An Analysis of the Impact of Forest Policy on Rural Areas of Chile

Raúl Cerda,Rosa Gallardo-Cobos,Pedro Sánchez-Zamora

doi:10.3390/f11101105

Raúl Cerda, Rosa Gallardo-Cobos + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/f11101105

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Journal: Forests	Publication Date: Oct 18, 2020
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Concepción, University of Córdoba

Abstract

The relationship between the forest sector and the well-being of people that depend on it for their economic livelihoods in rural areas is of strong interest in forest policy. In this sense, Chile has developed a forest policy that has had positive impacts, particularly on economic and productive aspects, but also negative impacts, such as the reduction of natural forest area, biodiversity, and provision of ecosystem services, as well as the increase in social conflicts and land abandonment. However, there are few studies that have evaluated the impacts of forest policy on rural population and development of the territory. Therefore, the objective of this research is to evaluate the impacts of Chilean forest policy on rural communities, particularly in terms of demographic variables and indicators of community well-being. The study area corresponds to the Bio Bio and Ñuble Regions (Chile), and the analysis includes productive, demographic, socioeconomic, and educational characteristics of population. The results show that the forestry policy implemented was able to generate a significant increase in the proportion of forest area. However, when this increase is mainly of the type of exotic forest plantations, it is associated with a demographic and socio-economic detriment of the population in some counties of the study area.

Highlights

There is no question that forests have a key role to play in efforts to mitigate global biodiversity loss and combat climate change by sequestering carbon as biomass
This correlation is positive in all the indicators, except for the variation in aging population (VAI). These results show that counties in which the proportion of population with elementary education decreases decrease total (VTP), rural (VRP) and economically active (VEAP) population, but they present an increase in aging population (VAI)
In relation to model 1, the results show that the variation in total population (VTP) is significantly and positively influenced by the increase in population with elementary education (VEE) and the increase in rural population (VRP), while it is negatively influenced by the variation in aging index (VAI)

Summary

Introduction

There is no question that forests have a key role to play in efforts to mitigate global biodiversity loss and combat climate change by sequestering carbon as biomass. For Kopnina [3], some functions such as carbon sequestration and provision of ecosystem services are being promoted under the commodification of nature with an anthropocentric vision, neglecting social and ecological justice. This view gets stronger if we analyze the relationship between natural forests and tree plantations [21], which are frequently the results of mere political decisions to face problems such as floods, degraded lands and, more recently, climate

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