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Towards a New Forest Model for Chile: Managing Forest Ecosystems to Increase Their Social, Ecological and Economic Benefits

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Abstract

Chile’s current forest model has resulted in almost three million hectares of plantations of exotic tree species owned mostly by two large companies, and 14 million hectares of native forests. Native forests in the northern portion of the country’s forestland (southern-central Chile) have a high degree of degradation, whereas in the southernmost part (Chilean Patagonia) they are mostly well conserved due to the low human population density. Overall, native forests in the regions with a Mediterranean climate (32–37°S) and Valdivian Temperate Rainforests (37–43°S) are in a poor and fragile state of conservation due to the high human population density and conflicting land-use demands on productive sites. This chapter provides options for moving towards a sustainable forestry model that addresses how exotic plantations are managed (at the stand and landscape levels), promotes sustainable management of highly productive native forests, and promotes the restoration of millions of hectares of degraded native forests. These measures should be developed with the aim of increasing ecosystem services for local communities in particular, as well as those of global relevance, such as increasing carbon sinks and biodiversity in these managed or restored forest ecosystems. Since changes will not occur by only increasing ecological and management knowledge, we propose some major governance aspects to move the forest sector of Chile in those directions.

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Correspondence to Pablo J. Donoso .

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Donoso, P.J., Romero, J.E. (2020). Towards a New Forest Model for Chile: Managing Forest Ecosystems to Increase Their Social, Ecological and Economic Benefits. In: Fuders, F., Donoso, P. (eds) Ecological Economic and Socio Ecological Strategies for Forest Conservation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35379-7_8

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