Abstract
Chile has embraced the expansion of monoculture forest plantations of exotic Monterey pine and eucalyptus as part of its development strategy. While forestry is considered financially successful and meets sustainability objectives, the increase in forest plantations across southern Chile has received harsh critiques for exacerbating conflict over Indigenous land rights, producing negative environmental outcomes, and increasing poverty and inequality. There are also claims that forest plantation expansion has led to an abandonment of the countryside. Migration is viewed as a result of the socioeconomic challenges that forest plantations produce at the local level; however, the linkages have not been explored. We examine the linkages between forest plantations and migration through two questions: Is there a relationship between forest plantation cover change and out-migration from rural areas? If so, what are the factors that explain this process? We use a difference-in-differences method analyzing panel data from the Chilean census and from CONAF, the Chilean National Forest Corporation, complemented by interviews, mapping workshops, and focus groups to answer these questions. Results indicate a statistically significant relationship between expanding forest plantations and population decline in rural areas. Qualitative data show that this expansion led to displacement of residents, declines in employment opportunities, and agriculture difficulties.
Highlights
Throughout much of the 20th century, Chile has embraced the expansion of monoculture forest plantations of exotic Monterey pine
We focused our study on campesino residents—residents who do not identify as Indigenous, in line with the larger goal of our study, which is to understand the impacts of the forestry industry on campesinos in particular, as land tenure and access in these communities are vastly different from the experience of Indigenous communities, and the large part of the research conducted on the impact of the forestry industries focuses on Indigenous communities [3,12,48]
Recent research has set out to evaluate the socioeconomic impacts of the expansion of the forestry industry in southern Chile
Summary
Throughout much of the 20th century, Chile has embraced the expansion of monoculture forest plantations of exotic Monterey pine Since the 1970s, planted forests, prevalent in the country’s south, have increased from 400,000 hectares (ha) in 1974 to around 3 million ha in 2019 [1]. This expansion has been incentivized through the implementation of Decree Law (DL). While the forestry industry is considered by some to be successful for its steady profits and potential for meeting sustainability objectives through the increase in carbon capture, the expansion of forest plantations across southern Chile has received critiques for exacerbating conflict over the longstanding struggle for Indigenous land rights [2,3,4,5], negative environmental outcomes such as water scarcity [6,7,8,9], and increasing poverty and inequality [10,11,12,13]
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