9 Land Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile J. ARoNson, A. De Pozo, C. OVALLE, J. AVENDANO, A. LAVIN and M, ET1ENNE 9.1 Introduction In mediterranean-climate regions (MCRs), historical and geographical as well as ecological approaches are needed to elucidate processes and pat- terns occurring at that rarely defined level of complexity called “land- scape”. In the case of Chile, a glance at the past five centuries of history is particularly crucial to the understanding of the various impacts of land- scape degradation. Furthermore, to aid in our attempt to combine both ecological and human geographical considerations, we will borrow the “three waves” paradigm of sociologist Alvin Toffler (1980). Toffler was, of course, dealing with all of human history, and at the full planetary scale. Here we will be zooming in on the so-called secano interior, or “interior drylands”, of the subhumid region of the Chilean MCR. 9.1.1 “Landscape”? According to the definition of Forman and Godron (1986) which most ecologists seem to accept, landscapes comprise “a recognizable cluster of ecosystems” interacting somehow with one another in an undefined space predicted to be about several km”, This definition is attractive because it fits so well with prevailing notions of “ecosystem” (Likens 1992). Yet, a purely materialistic definition of “landscape” hinders collaboration with most geographers and other social scientists, since it fails to address past and present human activities, customs, sentiments, etc. In what follows, we will address human as well as non-human determinants of change, degradation and diversity. Ecological Studies, Vol. 136 Rundel et al, (eds.) Landscape Degradation and Biodiversity in Mediterranean-Type Ecosystems © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1998156 J. Aronson et al. 9.2. The Secano Interior of Central Chile 9.2.1 Overview Within the secano interior (Fig. 9.1), we will deal only with the subhumid zone, the area lying some 250 to 400km south of Santiago, equal to some 40% of the total secano interior area. In this subhumid zone (ca. 35°-37°S; 600-1000 mm mean annual rainfall), corresponding roughly to the central valley of the 7th and 8th Administrative Regions of Chile, over 144000 7a T° ee a 70° 69° LA SERENA’ : soe i ee 7 ? j ae Arid ea ® OS ‘st 32° ampeg | F aie = Ry \ © Seniarid S w Region & i VALPARAISOZNY ‘ * Nef ot sabtanig)\Y © acd . cs aX SANTIAGO Hie ee o ASS ee A> stiles o = i 2 6hResiog” 39. a etna 354 2 Gy j 6 Z es VA 4 36 a "| cavauedes/y, : . G J eee E (CONCEPCION, LE HILLAN & STUDY AREA ( ar BtrRegion | SSD Gemporadle 'erhumid, J 9% 2060 1208m t ; . — ; Fig. 9.1. The secano inte- 14 73 aaa nena rior of central ChileLand Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile 157 people live and farm some 800000ha of non-irrigated land (Ovalle et al. 1990). About 61% of the human population in the subhumid secano interior live on farms, and actively engage in farming, while only 39% live in villages or small cities (INE 1990). Cauquenes is the largest agglomeration in the area with 38141 inhabitants. Total population in these secano com- munes has increased by over 36% in the past 25 years, and some 18.5% of the population live below Chile’s official poverty line (INE 1994). The major pre-conquest vegetation type of central Chile (30°-37°S) was apparently a dense, biologically diverse woodland that resembled those of other mediterranean-climate regions in their physiognomy and the pre- ponderance of sclerophyllous trees and shrubs (di Castri et al. 1981; Balduzzi et al. 1981). According to local conditions, these woodlands were dominated by Maytenus boaria, Quillaja saponaria, Cryptocarya alba and Peumus boldus. Today, however, as the result of 450 years of European colonization, the unirrigated portions of the secano are almost entirely dominated by a monotonous, synanthropic plant formation called espinal that could be called an anthropogenic savanna (Ovalle et al. 1990, 1996). The secano includes both Ilanos (plains) and lomas (hills) in the central Depression, and the inland portions of the coastal foothills on the one hand, and the Andean pre-Cordillera on the other (Fig. 9.2). Subhumid secano ecosystems have been sufficiently transformed as to bear little or no relationship to their prehistoric predecessors. Exotic fauna and flora abound and, overall, landscapes have been dramatically homogenized and “banalized” over the past 4.6 centuries. As suggested above, woodland has been to a very large extent replaced by Acacia caven-dominated espinales, and now appears to be incapable of autogenic restoration (Aronson et al. 1993a,b,c; Ovalle et al. 1996). A few dozen fragments of woodland degraded to matorral (open coppice stand of sclerophyllous species more or less invaded by tall shrubs) do occur in the subhumid secano interior, especially on large land-holdings (C. Lusk, unpubl. data), but they are all very small, ie. under 100ha, and in imminent danger of final destruction. In addition to soil erosion, one of the major consequences of past ill- constrained land use on ecosystems and, particularly, landscapes appears to have been the diminution of biological zonation along toposequences and the virtual disappearance of ecotones. The nearly ubiquitous presence of several species of lichens, and even mosses, occurring on the branches of Acacia caven trees in the seasonally inundated llanos bears vivid testimony to the microclimatic differences between Ilanos and lomas. Yet, apart from epiphytes, absolutely no vegetational differences can be observed between these two habitats. Clearly, it is in the area of land use history that the origins of this monotony must be sought. Further evidence of degradation158 J. Aronson et al. +64 Fig, 9.2. A typical long- s itudinal cross section of cen- fae tral Chile near Cauquenes in igs ee the 7th Region. m average 1500: lowest temperature of the am coldest month, July; P #00. jest month, July P mean X $00. So annual precipitation rook e Se 5000} i Aadeon Cordittera 4000- 3 3000 2000 cent! 5 10007 coos esi 500 Seco ewes |costero. “Secone o > Marine Grete gy, Altovion “at aistone Se et 36° S. Lotitude mecitervonean climote= subbumié zone) is provided by the fact that it is mainly on the lomas that traditional espinal wheat-pasture-wheat rotation is practised today, whereas in the past, both llanos and lomas were used for cropping. 9.2.2 The Green Tide Traditional agroforestry systems and matorral fragments in the secano interior are both threatened as a new land use is spreading rapidly through- out the region. We refer to the monospecific plantations of Monterey pine (Pinus radiata) or Eucalyptus globulus that some observers refer to as “the green tide” or the “green desert”. This trend - which will be discussed in more detail below - represents the first major sociological and ecological “conflict” in recent times for the secano interior. Of primary relevance here is that if current economic trends continue, biodiversity and human pres- ence may diminish even further. However, it should be mentioned that no sociological study has yet been undertaken to determine what local people think of contemporary land use, and landscape, changes. 9.3 The Three Waves Before proceeding further, we shall now introduce the “Third Wave” para- digm. Toffler (1980) called the invention of agriculture the “First Wave”,Land Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile 159 and the advent of modern manufacturing the second (ca. 1860 to 1920). Toffler then went on to suggest as a comparably important event the post- World War II phenomena related to high-tech, high-speed information processing and transfer that is sometimes called the “information age”, or the “third industrial revolution” (Rifkin 1995); Toffler called it simply the “Third Wave”. Writing in 1980, however, Toffler probably was not aware of the emerg- ing view shared by a growing number of biologists and physicists that life itself is essentially a process of genetic information flow, driven by what Richard Dawkins (1995) has called the “replication bomb” of digitally- coded DNA. Toffler failed to consider information from a biological or evolutionary point of view. At the end of this chapter, we will therefore explore the notion of the “third wave”, as it applies to central Chile, with a post-Darwinian sense of “information” thrown in. 9.3.1 The First Wave In Fig. 8.3, we have traced an abbreviated landscape history for the relevant part of the secano interior over the past ten millennia, based on the avail- able data and speculations of historians, archeologists, et al. Pre- Columbian peoples in central Chile, nowadays called Araucanos, were organised into different tribes according to the type of environment in which they lived. The current 7th and 8th Regions were occupied by Ranquelche (“reed man”) in the coastal swamps, Mapuche (“earth man”) in the central valley and Pehuenche (“Chile pine man”) in the coastal foothills and the Andean Cordillera, wherever Araucaria auraucana grew. These peoples kept llamas, set fires to clear areas, and cultivated some irrigated crops in the transversal river valleys. In short, they began the gradual transformation and elimination of natural vegetation. However, Gay (1865) and Bahre (1979) concluded that these cultures had comparatively little impact on ecosystems and landscapes, at least as compared to what happened much later, following the arrival of a small but powerful group of southern Europeans. In our study area this is certainly the case since the extension to central Chile of the mighty Incan empire was stopped around 1470 by Mapuche warriors north of the Rio Maule. The beginning of the First Wave in central Chile coincided with the arrival of Europeans in the mid-16th century (1536-1541). The first stage of this colonial period, however, had only few and very scattered effects on secano interior landscapes until the end of the 17th century. Indeed, during the Arauco War which lasted throughout the 17th century, Spanish settle- ments were limited to small fortified villages with some cultivated lands. It160 J. Aronson et al. was only somewhat later, when outside economic forces came into play, that a truly revolutionary force unfurled on central Chilean ecosystems and landscapes. There were two such periods of accelerated landscape transfor- mation corresponding to intense immigration processes - in the late 17th and the late 19th centuries. We will call these First Wave, Parts 1A and 1B (Fig. 9.3). Such episodes of the major landscape transformation of this part of Chile are important to identify since they may aid in comparative land- scape studies and preliminary diagnoses related to any proposal of restora- tion or rehabilitation. Starting in the late 1680s (Gay 1865; Bauer 1970), the Spanish Viceroy had his headquarters in Lima - a hyperarid region - and it made good colonial sense to encourage cereal production in Chile, and to bring in, by ship, all the wheat that Chile could produce. Judging from the available records, the consequences for central Chile were a short-term, economic bonanza and a long-term, ecological calamity. The second wheat “boom” took place two centuries later, and half a century after Chile won its independence in 1818. The nearly simultaneous gold rushes in California and Australia created huge markets for wheat in those two countries. From 1848 to the early 1880s, Chile was not only the world’s leading copper producer, but also one of the two or three leading exporters of wheat (Bahre 1979; Domic 1979). As primary productivity was higher in the subhumid region than in drier portions of the mediterannean climate zone, it is here that intensive cereal and vineyard cropping was Pre-Inca cultures Spanish conquest Araucanians 1 wave (A) Twave (B) 3" wave 1, 1 L 1 L L 1 10.000 1636 1600 1700 7800» 1800-20000. TIME Fig. 9.3. Schematic representation of the impact of human activities and demographic fluctuations on matorral woodlands and other ecosystems in the 7th and 8th Regions of central Chile over the last 10 millenia. The term “landscape integrity” is intended to refer to overall stability and other indices of ecosystem and landscape “health”Land Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile 161 concentrated. Accordingly, the long-term impact of the First Wave (Parts A and B) was more important here than further north, especially since the area south of the Rio Bio-Bio river remained largely inaccessible to Europe- ans until this century, due to the presence of belligerent Mapuches. 9.3.2. The Second Wave 9.3.2.1 Changing Land Use The industrial revolution had - as elsewhere - far-reaching consequences in Chile, e.g., the centralization, reorganization and mechanization of the means of production in all parts of the country. In the case of the secano interior, this has entailed massive plantations of fast-growing trees such as Pinus radiata and Eucalyptus globulus, the so-called “green tide” referred to above. Among other uses, the most important outlet is as pulpwood sold to the paper mills along the Pacific Coast. A government subsidy for tree planting was initiated in 1974 to encour- age the planting of trees (and shrubs, in the semiarid region). But, as this subsidy has no surface threshold, large forestry companies have been the major beneficiaries, as they buy up former farmlands in the secano interior and adjacent regions for large scale tree planting. This strategy has been favoured by the opening of Chile to the world market with immediate consequences on prevailing wheat and lamb prices. It might be thought that with higher rainfall, forest trees should grow faster in the temperate regions further south. Yet, of the annual average of 66500ha of pine or eucalyptus planted over the whole country each year throughout the 1980s, and nearly double that in each year from 1990-1995, more than half each year were situated in the 7th and 8th Regions (ODEPA 1996; CONAF unpubl. data). The explanation lies in the fact that south of Chilldn (37°S) winter temperatures drop drastically and only cold-tolerant temperate zone tree species survive and perform well. In comparison, the mediterranean-climate region north of Chilldn offers adequate rainfall for tree growth along with relatively lower risks of killing frosts. Moreover, in the secano interior of the 7th and 8th Regions, there are, for the time being, abundant croplands and rangelands for sale at modest prices that have already been cleared of tree cover. Thus, it is not surprising that relatively large-scale forestry plantations now occupy over 20% of land area in the MCR since 1974, the year that the Chilean government took decisive steps to facilitate private enterprise. The mild and equable coastal zone and coastal foothills are preferred for tree planting, but a growing proportion of plantations occur in the secano interior itself (Pizarro 1993; CONAF unpubl. data).162 J. Aronson et al. That the “green tide” is gaining speed is well illustrated in Table 9.1, which compares district and regional tree planting since 1974. Notably, the annual area of tree plantations each year since 1993 surpasses the totals for the preceding decade (ODEPA 1996). 9.3.2.2 Land Tenure In 1979, 1.4% of farm properties in the secano interior exceeded 500ha and these occupied a disproportionate 33.5% of land area (Sarah 1979), Since 1979, however, there has been a steady sale of portions of these large properties to Chilean and foreign forestry companies. Less visible than the dismemberment of large land holdings is the impact which forestry opera- tions have had on small-scale farmers and their land management prac- tices. A recent study in the 7th Region (Velasco 1993) indicates a large gap between the relative viability of smaller (21-150ha) and medium-sized farms (151->350ha) in the secano interior. Since over 85% of secano farms are under 35ha, and of these over 57% are under 10ha (Sarah 1979), and since the cost of living is increasing rapidly, it is not surprising that secano farmers are tempted to sell off portions of their lands. In some cases, of Table 9.1. Area of annual tree planting over a 20-year period in representative districts of the 7th Region lying in the secano interior, as compared to the entire 7th and 8th Regions, and all of central Chile (Pizarro 1993; CONAF, unpubl. data) Region Total area (ha) Tree plantation area (ha X 1000) 1974-1982 1983-1992 Total? 7th Region Licantén 45 49 47 8.6 Vichuquen 49 5.0 95 145 Hualafie 54 4.0 67 107 Pencahue 91 3.2 6.2 94 Curepto 108 94 119 213 Empedrado 112 10.7 Md 218 Cauquenes 25 24.0 18.8 42.8 Total 3480 106 151 257 8th Region (total) >3800 324 289 613 Central Chile 24485 688. 761 1449 (4th-1oth Regions) ° 85-90% Pinus radiata, 5.5-7.8% Eucalyptus globulus and E. nitens. »Prior to 1974, there were already over 100000 ha of tree plantations in both the 7th and 8th Regions, but annual growth in forestry activity was much slower. Since 1992, area of average annual planting of trees in the 7th and 8th Regions has been 15000 and 48000ha, respectively.Land Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile 163 course, secano land owners have reallocated portions of their land to monospecific forestry as part of their own land use activities. It should be recalled at this point that traditional land use and farming systems in central Chile [eave much to be desired in the modern day context. Typically, the Spanish settlers who followed in the wake of Diego de Almagro (1536), and Pedro de Valdivia - founder of Santiago, in 1541 - failed to bring with them the agro-sylvo-pastoral systems of southern Spain and Portugal (cf. Bahre 1979; Fuentes 1988, 1990; Ovalle et al. 1990). As Dansereau (1973) and others have pointed out, wherever Europeans settled in the New World, Asia or Africa, they tended to leave their folklore and tural savoir-faire behind them. Consequently, in virtually all their colonies, European settlers tended to farm and steward resources less intelligently than had their ancestors back in Europe. Partly as a result of poor management practices, and also as a result of ongoing landscape and ecosystem degradation, the traditional farming systems of the secano interior are increasingly in crisis. Consequently, monospecific tree plantations yield an annual per hectare cash return higher than most traditional farmers can achieve, and the relatively short 25-year rotation required for these trees gives the farmer the opportunity to benefit himself from at least one cash windfall. 9.3.2.3 Demographic Trends Demographic trends over the past 30 years (INE 1991) reveal a nearly steady rural exodus of about 2% per annum in the 7th and 8th Regions. From 1960 to 1990, when the annual growth rate of Chile as a whole averaged 1.7%, most secano districts of the 7th and 8th Regions showed a negative growth rate (INE 1970, 1980, 1990). Over the past decades, only three districts in the 7th and 8th Regions showed positive population growth, and in all three cases this resulted from small industrial develop- ments rather than agricultural advances. Thus, the secano contrasts sharply with many other parts of the country where rural economic growth based on irrigated agriculture, and aquaculture, has been quite spectacular, allowing large influxes of workers and their families. 9.3.3 The Third Wave 9.3.3.1 Geographical Aspects It may legitimately be argued that the pine and eucalyptus plantations cited above as part of the Second Wave are better understood as part of the Third164 J. Aronson et al, Wave, especially since some of the lumber companies active in Chile are multinationals and most of the pulpwood produced is exported abroad. The “green tide” can perhaps best be understood as a bridge between the Second and Third Waves. This will depend in part on what local people make of the trend. If the Second Wave in Chile, as elsewhere, induced a marked trend towards simplification and nationalization of production, and hence an economic and political scale change, from local to national, the Third Wave carries within it yet another scale change, this time towards globalization. From an ecological as well as humanitarian point of view, this can be a positive or a negative trend, depending on how it is managed. Along with other nations, Chileans (and Chilean companies) are increasingly reorient- ing themselves to participate in international networks of various kinds. They are also gaining awareness that the sustainability of the planet is very much in question as a result of past degradation and mismanagement. What remains to be seen is whether resource and landscape conservation, not to mention the patrimony of “information” stored in existing biodiversity, will receive national attention along with that old standby, economic growth. 9.3.3.2 Ecological Impact As mentioned above, there are a number of matorral fragments surviving in the Chilean secano, despite the overwhelming preponderance of espinales. There are also a small number of espinales especially well-man- aged (see Ovalle et al. 1990). It is interesting to compare these two situa- tions with the much more common ones of degraded or badly degraded espinales. In Table 9.2, we have done this for seven indicators or vital attributes characterizing relative ecosystem health. The point to determine is under which conditions the highest values obtained for the first six attributes can balance the low level of productivity measured in matorral stands. An evaluation of the use efficiency of soil water and fertility com- bined with the social usefulness of the outputs produced by each ecosystem will help to answer this basic question for managers seeking sustainable development for their farm or region. 9.4 Discussion Under current management systems, the espinales appear to be ecologi- cally and economically “blocked” (Ovalle et al. 1990). Relatively few gen-Land Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile 165 ‘Table 9.2. Vital attributes, in late spring, of a Chilean matorral and the successive espinal stages in the subhumid zone near Cauquenes (Aronson et al. 1993b, modified; reprinted with permission of Blackwell Scientific Publications) Vital attribute Stages of Degradation’ Matorral —_Espl Esp2 Esp3 No. annual species 15 46 27 7 No. perennial species 30 16 8 4 Total plant cover (%) 170 95 7 10-30 Soil organic matter (%) 3-5 27 10 0.2 Available soil water reserves (mm)” 100~120 70 50 30 Length of water availability (months) 8 7 65 55 Aboveground phytomass 0.1-0.5 3.5-4.5, 2.0-3.0 0.7-1.0 (tons DMha ‘yr '). "Somewhat disturbed matorral fragments near Cauquenes (7th Region) (average or range of data for 4 sites); Espl, mixed espinal with Acacia caven, Maitenus boaria and other tree species; Esp2, degraded espinal (50-75% tree cover); Esp3, badly degraded espinal {10-25% tree cover). ‘Upper 30cm of soil profile. “Herbaceous plants only. erations of burning and clearing followed by a century of mining, plough agriculture combined with overgrazing, and charcoal-making appear to have led to one or more “human-mediated vegetation switches” (Wilson and King 1995) that are probably reversible only through direct, and mas- sive, interventions. The alternative is to let the entire area “go” to the forestry companies and let them manage resources as they see fit. Land- scape diversity would be written off as a thing of the past and soil fertility would decline at even greater depths than under rotating cereal culture. An alternative path would be an integrated management plan combin- ing mixed farming infused with new techniques, and new germplasm, “new forestry” and, insofar as possible, conservation of the best surviving ex- amples of semi-natural or cultural landscapes. This alternative requires that local populations become aware of the interest of environment preser- vation either in relation to sustainable productivity, for improving their way of life, or both. It has a chance to develop only if market rules take into account product quality and origin, and if some lumber companies prove receptive to new approaches to tree farming. These constraints and opportunities should all be taken into account when tackling the ecolo- gical and economic rehabilitation of the secano interior (Ovalle et al. 1990). For example, increasing productivity in some landscape units of a given farm or watershed should have beneficial effects on nearby areas set aside166 J. Aronson et al. for conservation or designated for long-term rehabilitation efforts. At the same time, improving water and nutrient use efficiency and stopping sur- face erosion should receive high priority via the reorganization, and rein- tegration, of farming and tree cropping systems at the landscape level. In particular, a broader array of farm products and production strategies is needed to take advantage of innate landscape diversity in terms of hydro- logical and edaphic conditions particularly. Exotic woody species such as Pinus radiata or Chamaecytisus proliferus ssp. palmensis may have a key role to play in this new strategy because of their high growth potential and their ability to protect or even rehabilitate degraded soils. But their silvicul- ture must be managed so as to avoid monoculture over wide patches and to promote the combination of timber and firewood production with other shorter-term crops such as forage, game, aromatic plants, fresh fruits and so on. In addition, if more irrigation water is supplied to secano farms (N.B. the Chilean government is now making available subsidies to private indi- viduals to cover some 50% of the costs of smallscale, one-farm irrigation projects), cash crops can certainly be envisioned in the area. Such a devel- opment would permit small and medium-sized farms to remain viable, provided that land owners look for new investment and management op- tions, new potential sources of revenue, and a more diversified land use and marketing strategy in a fiercely competitive international market. Oth- erwise, the region will undergo more landscape “banalization” with only two main land uses ~ pine forestry and irrigated crops. Yet the fundamental problem is - as usual - social and political, rather than strictly ecological or technical. In other words, a socio-economic revival is required if we hope to see any long-term improvement in ecol- ogical terms. Additionally, a certain change in mentality is probably required, such that biodiversity, landscapes, and “the rural way-of-life” - or all of the above - are given new importance at local and national levels. We have argued that secano interior landscapes have been radically and irreversibly transformed, not to mention biologically impoverished by the impact of First and Second Wave activities altogether unaccompanied by ecological prudence. If this region is to avoid becoming further desertified ~ in the social and biological senses — traditional farming systems must be reinforced and renewed with an array of crops, and know-how made avail- able precisely as a result of the Third “information” Wave. What is particu- larly needed as well is a change in attitude about the Third Wave to include the biological aspects of information we have alluded to. Instead of pas- sively submitting to a so-called “third industrial revolution”, local people need to decide what kind of “information” is really important to them, and for their descendants.Land Use Changes and Conflicts in Central Chile 167 Acknowledgements, We wish to express our warm thanks to Francesco di Castri, Richard Groves, Richard Hobbs, Edouard Le Floc’h and Chris Lusk for discussions and criticisms of this manuscript. We also thank the CNRS/CEPE drawing studio for preparation of the figures. References Aronson J, Floret C, Le Floc’h E, Ovalle C, Pontanier R (1993a) Restoration and rehabi tion of degraded ecosystems. I. A view from the South. Restoration Ecol 1:8-17 Aronson J, Floret C, Le Floc’h CE, Ovalle C, Pontanier R (1993b) Restoration and rehabili- tation of degraded ecosystems. II. Case studies in Chile, Tunisia and Cameroon. 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