Pulping the South:
Industrial Tree Plantations in the World Paper Economy
Ricardo Carrere and Larry Lohmann

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Chapter 8
Chile: A Plantation Model Imposed by a Dictatorship

Chile's forestry development is being publicised as a successful application of neoliberal policies (Lara 1992, Messner 1993). Over 1.5 million hectares of trees have been planted in the country, the starting point for an impressive increase in timber exports, which have diversified to include over 400 different products with markets in 80 countries (PPI 11.1993). Chile currently holds the largest planted area of Pinus radiata in the world (Lara 1992), approximately 1.2 million hectares (Pandey 1992). However, Chile's forestry approach has resulted in a reduction of quality of life in the plantation zones, and has been an important cause of environmental degradation. Despite its 'neoliberal' label, the Chilean model has been based on direct and permanent state participation in the creation of wood resources and industrial infrastructure as well as in the establishment of 'rules of the game' favourable to the interests of the most powerful economic groups, both national and foreign.

The native forests

A bit of history

When the Spanish invaders arrived, most of the current territory of Chile (especially the South) was covered by magnificent forests, inhabited by indigenous communities using them in a sustainable manner. Like all colonisers, the recent arrivals aimed to exploit local resources and dominate local populations. When the indigenous peoples resisted, the colonisers resorted to violence. The war was long and hard. As indigenous peoples used forests as refuges to defend themselves against attacks, the colonisers deliberately burned large areas of tree cover with the sole aim of removing the native population's hiding place (CODEFF 1992, Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Once control had been established over local peoples, the forests were further degraded for commercial gain, a process which continues today. 'Civilising' the country, moreover, required the felling of large areas to provide land for pastures and agriculture. In the region of Malleco, Arauco and Caut!n, 300,000 hectares of forest were cleared in only ten years for grasslands and crops. The main crop was wheat, whose cultivation led to serious erosion within a short period. In other areas, such as Puerto Montt-Puerto Varas, enormous stretches of forest were burned for agricultural colonisation projects which were never successful (CODEFF 1992).

The new agents of destruction

In the last few years, two new agents of forest destruction have come to the fore: pine (and more recently eucalyptus) plantations, and the export of wood chips for paper pulp production.

One of the main arguments wielded by promoters of tree crops is that wood from plantations, by meeting part of market demand, will make it less necessary to fell trees in native forests. In the case of Chile, this argument has proved false. In fact, pine plantations have become an active factor in the degradation of native forests.

In 1965, the existing 200,000 hectares of pines were indeed providing a substitute for native industrial raw materials (Cruz and Rivera 1983, Leyton 1986). However, in 1974, a new forestry policy gave rise to a process of substituting pine plantations for native forests. By 1983 it was being reported that 'the destruction of the Chilean native forest [and its replacement] with plantations of radiata pine constitutes one of the most serious and pressing problems of mismanagement and conservation of natural resources in Chile' (CODEFF 1983). In 1992, it was estimated that 6,195 hectares of forests were being replaced each year by plantations (PAF 1992).

From 1986, exploitation of native forests was accelerated in order to produce woodchips for export (mainly to Japan) for paper pulp production. According to estimates made by the non-governmental organization CODEFF in 1992, exports in 1990 alone used some 19,000 hectares of forest land, for the most part destroying its productive potential, with many native forests being replaced with eucalyptus plantations. Native forest-based woodchip exports increased from 13,900 tonnes in 1986 to 1,702,900 tonnes in 1991, constituting in this year 55 per cent of total woodchip exports. The other 45 per cent was based on plantations of eucayptus (30 per cent) and pine (15 per cent). Eucalyptus woodchip exports have had an impressive growth, from nil in 1987, to 210,000 tonnes in 1988, 430,000 in 1989, 575,000 in 1990 and 920,000 in 1991 (CODEFF 1992). According to FAO (1994), Chile's total exports of chips, particles and wood residues reached 3,796,000 tonnes in 1993. Since 95 per cent of these go to Japan, it is perhaps not surprising that Mitsubishi _ which boasts a wholly-owned subsidiary called Astillas Exportactiones Lta. which produces chips from old-growth forests as well as from joint plantation ventures _ is the largest wood-chip exporter.

Genesis of the current model

The origin of pine monocultures

Although it possesses extensive forests made up of valuable species, Chile has based its forestry development in large part on the monoculture of Pinus radiata, a pine from the United States. The introduction of this tree to the country dates from early this century when it was tested for its possible use for coal mine pit props in southern Chile. The wood was not suitable for this purpose, but the fact that the tree could grow rapidly led to the establishment of large plantations in the region from 1930 onwards.

This process was initiated principally by social security organizations which planted pine extensively on arable and pasture land of low productivity. Following suit were financial societies linked to forestry businesses, who sold middle-class investors small individual parcels of one hectare in extensive plantations. Timber industries seeking a secure source of raw materials then became directly involved.

Between 1940 and 1959, 10,000 hectares per year were planted. This rate diminished to 6,000 around 1964 as a result of the paper-industry's policy of pushing wood prices down, which discouraged non-integrated wood producers (Leyton 1986).

The initial model

Since 1965, the Chilean state has actively encouraged forestry activity. The first step was legal and institutional restructuring aimed at increasing the area planted and encouraging industrial investment.

Simultaneously, the state became active in providing seedlings (produced in state nurseries) as well as in plantations themselves on both public and private land. From 1965 to 1973 (the year of the military coup against Salvador Allende's government) some 300,000 hectares of pine were planted. Similarly, the state participated directly in industrial activity, building a new pulp mill in Arauco (Celulosa Arauco) and starting another in Constituci"n (CELCO). Arauco was initially a joint venture between CORFO (80 per cent) and the US company Parsons & Whittemore (20 per cent). In 1972 CORFO (the state Corporation for the Promotion of Production) bought Parsons & Whittemore's shares and became the sole owner of the company. CELCO, meanwhile, was created by CORFO by the end of the 1960s, with shares also held by the Bishopric of Talca (ten per cent) and the French consortium Creusot-Loire Enterprises (18 per cent). The Bishopric withdrew from the project in a disagreement over the project's direction, and in 1974 CORFO bought the French consortium's shares and became the company's owner.

At this stage plantations constituted an important contribution to rural development, as particular attention was given to small and medium-sized producers, who reacted very positively to state initiatives. In contrast to those which were established later, pre-coup plantations did not take up the total area of any estate, part of which was set aside for crop and grazing land, and were owned by small and medium-sized producers. Labour conditions, too, were improving in the pre-coup years, as a result of marked development in union activity in the rural sector (Leyton 1986).

It is important to ask, however, why the state, technicians, businesses and rural producers alike concentrated exclusively on pine production, instead of attempting to manage native forests sustainably. After all, not only can native forests achieve similar growth rates to radiata pine; their timber also fetches prices two to four times higher than those of plantation pine (Cavieres et al. 1983, Lara 1992, CODEFF 1992, Leyton 1986). Using indigenous forests could also lead to important environmental and social benefits. The answer, according to CODEFF (1983), can be found in a style of development which, corresponding to external interests and markets, overlooks and undervalues existing forest resource potential, destroying with the aim of 'creating' the resources required by these markets. . . . the reason for not using [existing forest] resources is not their lack of potential _ that potential being quite high _ but rather problems of commercialisation, lack of state incentives, and the nonexistence of a technological management model.

The dictatorship's model

The initial defects of the pine-monoculture model became more serious following the establishment of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1973. Although the dictatorship advertised itself as following a 'neoliberal' model in matters of economic policy, this free-enterprise philosophy did not seem to apply to the forestry sector, where disproportionate state subsidies for export-oriented big business and direct investors became notorious (Lara and Veblen 1993, Leyton 1986). The negative impacts of plantation forestry were aggravated and the positive ones minimized. As Leyton (1986) sums it up:

The two periods studied (1965-73 and 1974 to date) reveal divergent styles in relation to profit distribution and participation in the decision-making process. At present there is an extraordinary concentration of property, means of production, sales management and decision-making in the hands of a small number of businesses belonging to the three most powerful economic groups in the country. In return, there has been a considerable deterioration in conditions for the small proprietor and forestry workers who have remained marginalised from the benefits of growth in the pine economy. The current public policies have not favoured the wider strata of rural society, but they have to a large measure converted these into machines for the transfer of financial resources towards the big forestry companies of the radiata pine zone.

State assets of land, plantations and processing plants were rapidly sold at bargain prices to prominent actors in the private sector, granting them an enormous subsidy to help them compete on the international market. The state, which had taken the initiative and risks of long-term investment in forestry resources _ for example, by planting 420,000 hectares of timber in the 1965-1973 period _ handed over the fruits of its efforts to the private sector just at the moment when the returns on its work were about to start coming in (G"mez and Echenique 1988). In the words of Cruz and Rivera (1983), the 'current power of the large forestry businesses is based on public capital, as the handing over of the industrial infrastructure and plantations occurred at artificially depressed prices'. Large businesses have used the proceeds from this windfall to pay for tree planting and plantation maintenance. As Antonio Molina, president of the Rural Workers' Confederation notes, what large forest businesses earn today 'comes to them without having cost them anything' _ and they, rather than rural workers, receive the benefits (Chile Forestal 1.1993). Between 1973 and 1979, moreover, the dictatorship returned around 4,000 of the landholdings expropriated during the agricultural reforms of the previous government to the earlier owners. This measure, which redistributed 28 per cent of all the expropriated land in the country, further encouraged large-scale forestry exploitation (Leyton 1986).

Similarly, it is not the actors who currently own the forest assets who had to put up investments in large pulp and paper factories, but rather the state, both directly through CORFO or through government support at the request of transnational corporations linked to national private projects (Leyton 1986). Some of the most significant agro-industrial conglomerates have benefited from this process:

* The present Celulosa Arauco y Constituci"n company, whose two pulp mills (ARAUCO and CELCO) were sold by the state in 1977 and 1979 to the Compa$!a de Petr"leos de Chile (COPEC), the largest private company in the country.

* Forestal Arauco, the seventh largest Chilean company, which owned 64,000 hectares of plantations in 1976 when it was taken over by COPEC.

* INFORSA, with a pulp mill, a paper mill and thousands of hectares of plantations, acquired from the state by Grupo Vial (one of the three major economic groups in Chile) in 1976 (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Not sufficiently happy with their new property acquired at 'artificially depressed prices,' private industry pressured the state into providing a further set of incentives. These incentives ranged from direct subsidies for plantations (75 per cent of the cost), as well as for pruning, thinning, surveillance, and fencing, and even to guaranteeing the availability of a cheap workforce through the prohibition of union activity and repression of workers' and farmers' movements.

Within the confines of the current development model, which privileges the powerful sectors at the expense of the weakest, this policy has been highly successful. The Chilean forestry sector is today one of the main axes of the national economy, with pulp, paper and fibre shipments accounting, in 1991, for over five per cent of export income (IIED 1995). Its pulp industry is internationally considered to be a young giant (Swann 1993), well-positioned to sell to the growing Asian market, and the return to democracy in Chile has not caused substantial changes to government forestry policy (Lara 1992, Lara and Veblen 1993).

Support in implementing Chile's forestry policy has been offered by multilateral credit entities like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other multilateral agencies. Forest research and development, for example, have been promoted through the 'Investigaci"n y Desarollo Forestal' funded by CONAF, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). In 1991 a project to develop a Forest Action Plan for Chile was initiated as part of the worldwide Tropical Forest Action Programme, a World Bank and FAO-supported initiative which boosts forest investment and links the interests of transnational forest industries and consultants with those of Southern business elites and forest departments (Leyton 1986).

During the last few years, eucalyptus (particularly Eucalyptus globulus), has been incorporated into this model, mainly as a source of raw material for chemical pulp for export. In 1988, 8,000 hectares of eucalyptus were planted, and the yearly plantation rate increased to 17,000, 29,000, 34,000 and 41,000 in successive years. This increase was spurred by the good prices paid for pulp timber and woodchips, the fact that eucalyptus grows faster than radiata pine, and the fact that radiata pines have begun to suffer from disease, making them a risky investment. Eucalyptus plantations have replaced both native forest and arable and pasture land (Cerda et al. 1992, Caba$a 1993, Rada 1992).

Interest in eucalyptus on the part of Chilean and Japanese industries was awoken by the Santa Fe project (a venture involving Shell, Scott Paper and Citibank), which built the first eucalyptus pulp plant and simultaneously acquired the most extensive eucalyptus plantation in Chile (P&PA 5.1991). Instead of merely importing wood chips, Japanese firms became large-scale investors in Chilean eucalyptus plantations. It is estimated that in the coming years, subsidiaries of Itochu, Daio Paper, Mitsubishi Paper, Sumitomo Corporation, Nippon Paper and others will plant between 10,000 and 16,000 hectares annually, aiming at the yearly export of between 3.5-5.6 million tonnes by the beginning of the next decade. Similar planting rates are planned both by firms which have already built pulp mills (CACSA, CMPC, and Santa Fe) and by new groups proposing the installation of a new eucalyptus pulp plant (Andinos and Forestal Ace) (Rada 1992).

Socioeconomic and environmental consequences

Who benefits?

Most government support for Chile's forestry sector during the 1970s and 1980s went to only a few corporations. Four holding companies are estimated to own 40 per cent of all forest plantations and account for almost 70 per cent of forest exports. Another nine per cent of Chile's plantations are in the hands of seven holding companies controlled by foreign capital, which account for another 10 per cent of forest exports (Cabrera 1989, cited by Lara and Veblen 1993). Two of the large economic groups alone, Matte-Alessandri and Angelini, control nearly 50 per cent of existing Chilean pine plantations. Since 1975, moreover, 'forest corporations have been acquiring land from private owners, which, added to the large expanses acquired in open bidding from the state, has allowed them to concentrate enormous stretches of plantations' (G"mez and Echenique 1988).

In addition, the three most powerful Chilean economic groups (Vial, Cruzat-Larra!n and Matte-Alessandri) have acquired not only plantations, the main pulp and paper plants, and, through subsidies, enormous forest holdings, but also sawmills, timber agglomerates, packaging factories, and other industrial plants (Cruz and Rivera 1983). These groups are thus able to coordinate plantation operation with forest exploitation, industrial processing, transportation and sales (Leyton 1986).

Pulp production, concentrated in five large plants, is dominated by two large companies, Compa$!a Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC) and Celulosa Arauco y Constituci"n (CACSA), with significant participation by a third firm, Forestal e Industrial Santa Fe (Swann 1993). Arauco is owned by Compa$!a de Petr"leos de Chile (COPEC), which is controlled by Chilean entrepreneur Anacleto Angelini. Angelini is a partner of Carter Holt Harvey of New Zealand, which is in turn jointly controlled by the US's International Paper Company and Brierly Investments of New Zealand _ a firm which is also responsible, through a joint venture, for the illegal seizure and degradation, through eucalyptus plantings, of fertile public lands in Thailand (see Chapter 12). Arauco operates the Arauco I and II and Constituci"n mills, with a combined capacity of around 850,000 tonnes per year, giving the company a three per cent share of the world pulp market (Swann 1993). In 1992 Arauco was the top national exporter, with an income of US$314 million (PPI 11.1993). CMPC, meanwhile, operates a pulp mill in Laja, with a capacity of 315,000 tonnes per year, and another plant of equal capacity in Mininco (Celulosa del Pac!fico) in partnership with the US's Simpson Paper (Papermaker 8.1993). CMPC owns almost 415,000 hectares of land, most of which are planted with pine (PPI 8.1993).

Another firm, Forestal Santa Fe, is owned 60 per cent by Royal Dutch Shell, a British/Dutch firm, and 20 per cent each by the US's Scott Paper and Citicorp. Santa Fe runs a pulp mill with a capacity of 240,000 tonnes per year, of which Scott Paper (now assimilated to Kimberly-Clark) is contracted to buy 40-80 per cent (Swann 1993). The Swiss firm Cellulose Attisholz meanwhile holds 25,000 hectares of Pinus radiata and another 100,000 hectares of land suitable for planting; all of its pulp production is exported to Western Europe (PPI 11.1993).

The export orientation of Chile's forest industry and forest policy also benefits large paper companies in the North, who need increasing quantities of cheap raw material to maintain and increase current levels of consumption. Some 60 per cent of Chile's pulp production _ mostly chemical pulp _ is exported (Cerda et al. 1992). More than three-quarters of this goes to the North and to the East Asian 'tigers', with Europe being by far the biggest customer (FAO 1994).

As a result of the indiscriminate support on the part of the Chilean state for large national and international businesses, this pulp is one of the cheapest in the world (Shell/WWF 1993; P&PA 5.1991). According to a World Bank study, the production costs of pine logs (from planting to transportation to points of export) are only between 30 and 50 per cent of the normal costs in the US and Scandinavia (cited in Messner 1993). Such low costs, as we will see later on, do not take into account the high social and environmental costs which underlie them. Chilean citizens, in other words, subsidize Northern consumers.

Chile is also an important exporter of other timber goods (Shell/WWF 1993). Of the over 400 forest products which Chile ships abroad, the mainstays continue to be pulp and unprocessed or semi-processed goods such as pulp logs, wood chips, and sawn timber. Principal markets are in Asia (especially Japan) and Europe, with South America and the United States also important (Cerda et al. 1992).

Who loses?

Chile's rural people are not only missing out on the benefits of the country's forestry 'development', but are by and large actually in a worse situation than before plantations were established. The current pattern of forestry development is even seen by many rural people as a threat to their survival (Otero 1990). One rural cooperative leader has suggested that the pine tree symbol on the current logo of Chilean rural cooperatives be removed, as this species is seen as an enemy by the local population (Leyton 1986).

For one thing, forestry activity, far from creating more employment, has directly caused the expulsion of small farmers and wage earners from rural areas. Censuses demonstrate that the areas with greatest plantation cover are those which have expelled the greatest number of rural workers, while at the other end of the scale, the agricultural areas of the central valley, which produce traditional crops, maintain their agricultural population (Leyton 1986). Even officially, it is recognised that 'poverty, even though it is an old problem, has been aggravated by large rural-rural and rural-urban migrations as a result of the expansion process of modern forestry' and that 'zones of high plantation concentration see the effects of enforced rural migration, with high levels of poverty and marginalisation' (Chile 1991). After emigrating to unfamiliar rural areas, migrants must then often move on to cities, a process accompanied by increasing levels of alcoholism and prostitution (Lagos 1993). Settlements called 'forest shanty-towns' have meanwhile sprung up spontaneously on public ground, along the sides of roads, rivers or old railway lines (Cruz and Rivera 1983, Leyton 1986). The exodus stems from several causes:

* When forestry businesses acquire estates previously dedicated to agricultural production, most or all of the workers are swiftly dismissed. With trees planted on all available estate land, the rural population is left with few ways of making a living. One estate originally employing 260 people cut its staff to 14. On another estate, only one worker was kept on (as a guard) out of an original 120 (Leyton 1986, Equipo de Pastoral Campesina 1993, CODEFF 1994).

* The closure of many small sawmills and the concentration and modernization of the industry in a few large, highly mechanised mills has meant the loss of still more rural jobs.

* Rural residents seeking new forestry jobs must emigrate to the towns, since employers contract their workers there.

* Because forestry companies fear that local rural people may start forest fires, they also try to coerce them into emigrating. Firms kill domestic animals (Cruz and Rivera 1983); fence the countryside (Equipo de Pastoral Campesina 1993, Leyton 1986); cut off road access; and deliberately exclude local people from consideration for forestry work. As a result, many farmers and small holders are forced to sell their land to the firms (Equipo Pastoral Campesina 1993). Very rarely, firms have been so eager to get rid of local residents that they offer higher-than-market prices for farmers' land (CODEFF 1994).

* The environmental impacts of large plantations have also directly led to emigration. In many cases, rural dwellers have found themselves deprived of water for themselves and their livestock. The replacement of native forests by pine and eucalyptus plantations has taken away other important components of rural residents' system of survival as well, including wood, fuel, fruit, fibres, dyes, honey, mushrooms, forage, game and medicinal plants (Otero 1990, CODEFF 1992). The application of herbicides and pesticides by forestry companies has meanwhile threatened the health of human beings and domestic animals alike (Cruz and Rivera 1983, Cavieres and Lara 1983). Large forest fires are another cause of displacement. In 1988, for example, over 18,000 hectares of plantation were burned in the B!o-B!o region , resulting in the destruction of 80 homes (Otero 1990).

Another reason for popular hostility to the new forestry model lies in the tough working and living conditions in the plantation and forestry sector faced by those who have not been forced to abandon the countryside.

Largely responsible for these conditions are post-coup changes in power relations between companies and workers. For example, the surplus of seasonal and unemployed labour brought about by the uprooting of rural people, coupled with the repression of the organised labour movement and the absence of almost any legal protection for labourers regarding salaries, working hours, working conditions, safety regulations, etc. (Federaci"n 1988), has allowed big forestry companies to impose an employment system based on subcontracting. Under this system, forestry industries dismiss most of their permanent labourers, maintaining a reduced number of employees for administration and supervision (G"mez and Echenique 1988) and hiring subcontractors to carry out the bulk of the work. Only 2.3 per cent of the staff at Crecex, for example, is permanent, most of the firm's 2000 workers being dependent on seasonal contracts issued by subcontractors. Subcontractors, which are usually small enterprises, meanwhile compete strenuously for contracts by reducing their costs _ mainly payroll _ to a minimum (Leyton 1986).

The lack of worker unity promoted by the subcontracting system, combined with prevailing high rates of unemployment, big business' political power, and legal restrictions on unionisation, has helped push forestry wages down to minimal levels. Unsurprisingly, the current forestry development model was implemented most swiftly during the fiercest part of the Chilean dictatorship following the 1973 coup. As the union movement was disbanded and a 'free' labour market developed, businesses were enabled to gain large profits by lowering salaries (Leyton 1986).

Seasonal labourers, in addition, lack job security and usually work without a contract, without protection against dismissal, and without rights to collective bargaining or old-age pensions. Informally-hired workers are dismissed as soon as their job is finished _ usually a matter of weeks or months _ and must return to unemployment until another job offer comes up (Federaci"n 1988). Jos Gonz lez Castillo, president of the Chilean National Confederation of Forestry Workers, estimates that 75 per cent of forestry workers are in precarious employment, with fixed-term contracts depending on the whims of the contractors (Chile Forestal 5.1993). In spite of the existence of an estimated 100,000 workers in the sector, the total number of days worked show that only half of these workers are employed on a permanent basis (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

The majority of subcontractors, moreover, do not provide their workers with safety equipment, even obliging workers to provide their own chainsaws. As Leyton (1986) notes,

Living conditions in the camps are on a minimum subsistence level. The housing has no plumbing, and often not even flooring. It is normally built from wood cut on site, with no sanding and lacking even the most basic comforts ... the working day runs from six in the morning to eight at night on the plantations ... a situation worsened by the 'pulper!a' system whereby the contractor sells all the basic goods the worker needs on site. These sales are made without money changing hands, the amounts being noted down and deducted on payday. These discounts can easily add up to 60 or 70 per cent of the worker's salary, as a result of the markup imposed by the contractor.

One unionist maintained that even this situation, however, represented an improvement on the situation immediately following the coup, when 'the majority of us slept out in the woods all year round in the rain, dirt and cold.' It is hardly surprising that unionists describe subcontractors as 'twentieth-century slave dealers' (Federaci"n 1988).

Despite benefiting hugely from this type of exploitation, large businesses cynically affect disappointment at the 'low productivity' of Chilean forestry workers. Responding to this 'concern', the University of Concepci"n, in a number of studies 'to determine if it is innate characteristics or social problems which explain the low productivity of the forestry worker', concluded that Chilean forestry workers have an aerobic physical capacity similar to that of Swedish forestry workers and better than that of most of the Chilean working population. The studies found, however, that as a result of poor diet and deficient sanitary conditions, Chilean workers only use 27 per cent of their capacity while their European counterparts use 50 per cent (Leyton 1986).

Environmental degradation

A study recently published by the Forestry Institute (INFOR) and the Corporation for Promotion of Production (CORFO) implicitly recognises that Chile's current model of forestry development has so far tended to displace environmental damage onto other sectors:

The increase in exportable timber on offer . . . and its consequent economic and social benefits allow both individual companies and the nation to offer compensation funds to mitigate the environmental impacts of forestry and forest industries (Cerda et al. 1992; emphasis added).

Three such 'impacts' will be discussed here: on biodiversity, on water, and on soils.

Biodiversity

One of the main effects of the new forestry on biodiversity, of course, derives from the conversion of large areas of native forests into industrial plantations of pine and eucalyptus through clearcutting or burning. Some 50,000 hectares of native forest disappeared in two of Chile's main forested regions (Regions VII and VIII) between 1978 and 1987, among which practically a third of the coastal forest in the VIII Region was felled in order to be replaced with pine plantations (Lara and Veblen 1993).

These conversions have threatened several plant and animal species, including three species of tree (Nothofagus alessandri, Gomortega keule and Pitavia punctata) and one shrub (Berberidopsis coralina) native to Regions VII and VIII, which are on the list of woody species in danger of extinction (Lara 1992). The plantations, whose density prevents the development of accompanying vegetation, also wipe out native plant communities typically containing between 20 and 158 species of vascular plants (Lara and Veblen 1993, Schlatter and Mur#a 1992).

Animal species have also been devastated. In the unmanaged pine planta-tions of the central zone, the ground is covered by:

. . . fallen needles of an orangey coffee colour. From time to time fungi can be spotted _ especially after a rainstorm _ along with various other small plants. The fauna is very scarce; the forests lack birdsong and have no amphibian life. There is a total absence of reptiles and mammals. Only in the fringe zone, the fire breaks and open glades are there greater signs of life (Schlatter and Mur#a 1992).

According to the National Forestry Corporation, the monoculture tree plantations constitute a threat to the survival of various endangered species like the pudu (Chilean goat), the Chilote fox, the little long-nosed weasel, the huemul (Andes deer), the little forest monkey and the Darwin frog, among others (CODEFF 1992).

Pulpwood plantations, of course, are hospitable to certain species. But the homogeneous nature of the plantations allows such species to run rampant in them, sometimes resulting in the annihilation of whole stands of trees. For example, two species of field mouse, accustomed to feeding on roots, recently adapted themselves to eating pine as a result of the changes in their environment. In some zones this resulted in the destruction of up to 30 per cent of the trees. In the last few years, similarly, Rhyacionia buoliana (European pine shoot moth) has also appeared in Chile, eating the internal sections of terminal pine shoots and forcing the tree to put out new ones, causing a loss in growth and directionality, weakening the tree and leaving it open to fungus infections which eventually kill it. The fungi Diplodia pinea (which mainly kills the tip of the tree) and Dithistroma pinea (which causes the needles to fall) are other serious afflictions of pine plantations, while Bacunculus phyllopus (an insect) eats pine needles and hinders photosynthesis (Otero 1990). Epidemics of such organisms constitute a serious danger for local people who have become economically dependent on forest production (Schlatter and Mur#a 1992).

Other species can also become problems. For example, the planting of pine in monoculture, by modifying the structure of local vegetation, has 'prevented nest building by birds and stopped foxes from being able to move around inside the forest. Rodents and rabbits, competitive species, have increased in number, endangering young pine plantations and causing economic damage to the forestry companies' (Schlatter and Mur#a 1992).

The companies have then applied chemicals which poison not only the rabbits, but also bird, mammal and other species. Carnivores needed to regulate the herbivore population go into decline as a result, creating yet more opportunities for the rabbit population to increase and promoting a vicious circle (Cavieres and Lara 1983). Herbicides (including one containing a component of Agent Orange) have also been used on young plantations for weed control, and undoubtedly contribute further to the reduction of diversity in indigenous flora and fauna (Lara 1992).

The use of fire as a management method has also reduced biodiversity. As Cavieres and Lara (1983) note, fire

kills practically all the existing fauna in the area in all stages of development: eggs, young, adults etc. . . . Not only are whole populations of various species killed, but also, through actions of this type, their habitats and micro-habitat are destroyed (burrows, nests, etc.), a situation which persists for a long time or even indefinitely in some cases.

In the province of B!o-B!o, the copihue (the national flower of Chile), has seen its 'presence in the study area seriously diminished as a result of the fires, with only a few scarce weedy examples now existing'.

The process of substituting plantations for native vegetation also impoverishes the landscape as a whole. Natural diversity is replaced with homogenisation. A diversity of life, whose outcome is a landscape of unique characteristics, is transformed into the monotony of uniform lines of one species of pine. A recent study has shown that the pine plantations are less attractive to tourists than areas of native forests (CODEFF 1992).

Soil

With each new study, evidence accumulates that industrial plantations are an important factor in soil degradation. This degradation can be attributed to several factors.

First, unlike native forests, pine plantations tend to extract more nutrients than they give back to the soil, due to the absence of a rapid humus-production process. They thus gradually reduce soil fertility (Gayoso, cited in CODEFF 1992). The rapid growth of the Chilean plantations, in other words, is owed, 'among other reasons, to the existence of a large quantity of nutrients generated by the native forests'. It is this which has made it possible for forestry firms to plant radiata pine compactly and achieve better growth rates than in this pine's original environment (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Poor humus production is in turn a result of several factors, especially the soil acidification associated with pine plantations, which impedes the development of microorganisms which help break down organic materials. While this acidification simultaneously encourages the growth of a different type of microfauna, especially various forms of fungi that help pines absorb nutrients from the soil, these fungi are not capable of producing humus (Cruz and Rivera 1983). The faster the pines grow, the more impoverished the soil becomes.

As one academic apologist for plantations admits, moreover, two or three rotations of pines leads to a 'pronounced loss of some nutrients, like boron, making fertilisation necessary'. Pine plantations thus have to be treated, even in the eyes of their defenders, as 'an intensive crop and have to be dealt with technically just as agriculture has its annual crop management' (Cruz and Rivera 1983). Pine plantations, in other words, are the forestry equivalent of Green Revolution agricultural crops, the negative impacts of which have been extensively described by Vandana Shiva (1991a).

Erosion is another source of soil degradation on plantations. The felling of native forests and the burning of residual wood leave the soil unprotected for the first two or three years of a plantation, resulting in intense erosion during the heavy winter rains (Lara 1992, Cavieres and Lara 1983). The same thing occurs after the final harvest, when all the plantation trees are felled and the remains burnt off. As Otero (1990) observes,

Studies by CONAF in the VII Region show that the practice of burning the waste, as is currently done in over 10,000 hectares of the zone, causes a loss of between 35 and 566 tons of topsoil per hectare per year, in circumstances where the maximum tolerable loss for forest soils should not be above four tons per hectare per year.

This process is even more serious in mountainous areas, Otero continues, where the burning of residues leads to the loss of between 500 and 2,000 tons per hectare per year. When a forest is exploited, moreover, access roads and the dragging of logs open deep ruts down which winter rains flush topsoil and undecomposed needles (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Plantation supporters, citing the insignificant soil loss on certain unmanaged plantations, have sometimes concluded that plantations are the most efficient method of recovering soils (Endlicher 1988, cited by Otero 1990). Such data are irrelevant to the majority of Chilean pine plantations, which are commercially managed and are thus oriented toward timber extraction at the fastest possible rate.

Water

Chile's current model of forest development has, in the words of Leyton (1986), contributed to 'levels of extreme danger in terms of flooding or scarcity of water on a local level'. Industrial plantations (and associated industrial processes) affect water supplies in two ways: through changes in the hydrologic cycle and through contamination.

A large body of evidence demonstrates that pine plantations cause important changes in the cycling of water in catchment areas. According to studies carried out in 1991 by Anton Huber (cited in CODEFF 1992), an adult radiata pine tree evapotranspires _ liberates into the atmosphere _ 60 per cent more water than adult native trees.

In addition, the soil under pine plantations has little rainfall absorption capacity, with a thick layer of undecomposed needles often preventing water from even reaching it. As one forest ranger in an area of extensive pine plantations has observed, the humus layer of a native forest is always damp and a great number of small sources of running water can be found there. The floor of a pine plantation, on the other hand, is dry for most of the year. Even after heavy rains there is little noticeable dampness, and that is seen only on the surface of the carpet of needles; 10 centimetres down the soil is dry (Cruz and Rivera 1983). As the Huber studies concluded,

[P]ine plantations, in continuous extensive stretches, cause a great desiccation of water sources. The smallest streams shrink or disappear, and as a result the flow of the larger water courses and the water supply for rural populations do likewise.

In some areas, streams dried up when plantations were established, reappearing only when the trees were felled. Wells, too, have dried up during the summer months, depriving local residents of water both for themselves and for their livestock. Towns such as Angol began facing serious water supply problems eight years after plantations were established in the surrounding countryside. In some cases houses have been abandoned when water supplies dwindled. The inability of soils under pine plantations to hold water, combined with a lack of water-retaining undergrowth, can also lead to flooding in the valleys below, when, after storms, rainwater rapidly flows down hillsides (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Increasing use of fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides on the part of the forestry sector, moreover, is unquestionably leading to the contamination of watercourses. Erosion has also caused high levels of cloudiness in water supplies (Otero 1990), sometimes making them unfit for drinking (Cavieres and Lara 1983). The downstream industries fed by tree plantations, of course, also pollute water supplies. As a result of a pulp plant, for example, the tourist city of Constituci"n has seen its beaches contaminated and its coastal fisheries damaged (Cruz and Rivera 1983).

Conclusions

Present-day Chilean plantation forestry constitutes an example of socially regressive and environmentally unsustainable development. Arising under a military dictatorship which offered its support to large economic interests and transnational capital, this style of development has engendered poverty, despoliation and exploitation. Not only have the country's plantations failed to ease pressure on native forests, improve soil and water conservation, or promote employment and social development. They have also brought about an increasing artificialisation of the ecosystem, particularly through the use of agrochemicals which create even greater problems than those they claim to solve.

What is extolled as an ingredient of a 'boom' in exports and industrial production, moreover, has resulted in the decline or even disappearance of much of Chile's rural society. As Badilla (Equipo 1993) puts it, 'History is repeating itself. In the past it was the indigenous peoples who suffered the rape of their lands; and now we are seeing the same with the rural population'.

While a factory model of monospecific industrial plantations is being promoted, native Chilean forest resources, which are of benefit to the majority of both present and future Chileans, continue to be ignored or pillaged, since managing them in a sustainable way is not in the economic interests of a small, powerful minority based both in Chile and abroad. To Chile's rural people, the advance of pine and eucalyptus plantations seems to constitute the 'advance of a green army' (Equipo 1993).