News

A Forest Economy is a Green Economy

Sponsors

Julio Torres Cuadros, Executive Secretary of the College of Forest Engineers of Chile

The forestry sector, not only in Chile but also in the rest of the world, faces a paradoxical condition. It is recognized as an activity that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, improving national balances, and is also presented as a key sector to redefine the global development model—shifting from a fossil fuel-based economy to a bioeconomy based on the use of renewable natural resources, such as wood.

However, all of the above is not enough for those who strive to push an agenda, wrongly labeled as environmental or ecological, which viscerally rejects climate action based on fast-growing plantations or even the sustainable management of native resources. These groups fail to reconcile the benefits of using renewable natural resources to build a green economy with the need to create the raw materials to sustain such an economy.

Those of us who regularly participate in forestry debates must repeatedly listen to representatives of these groups rant against forest plantations (always with science-based arguments), blaming these crops for all the evils of capitalism, extractivism, and the most negative aspects of development. Of course, they do not bother to articulate and propose a viable development alternative that dispenses with planted forests as key players in a new economy. Simply put, in their fantasies, they imagine a world that does not exist—one where forests and the millions of people who depend on them will live happily without touching or managing them, while simultaneously promoting increased consumption of biodegradable materials. How is that possible? No one knows. Not even them, who dare not propose alternatives, given the factual impossibility of reconciling the opposing aspirations they hold.

But what is most concerning is that this is not just the thoughtless daydreaming of many so-called environmentalist groups; the same inconsistency is seen in the authorities responsible for the country's policies. A concrete example of this deeply incongruent view is the mention of forest monocultures in the Framework Law on Climate Change, published in the Official Gazette a couple of weeks ago. Inexplicably, they explicitly exclude forest monocultures from the guidelines of the long-term climate strategy. The law states in Article 5, letter c), that to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the strategy will establish guidelines associated with ecosystem conservation, ecological restoration, as well as afforestation and reforestation with native species. It then adds that "the guidelines will not encourage the planting of forest monocultures."

Besides ignoring that reforestation, whether with native or introduced species, is a legal obligation, this arbitrary exclusion of forest monocultures is inconsistent because the Nationally Determined Contribution for the forestry sector, published in 2020, commits precisely to establishing 200,000 hectares of forest plantations, thereby recognizing their role in carbon sequestration. How, then, can their exclusion just two years later be understood? The truth is that it can only be explained by an ideological bias against forestry that blinds decision-makers. Blind and deaf to the role of wood in a future green economy, they incorporate exclusions into the law that will only risk achieving the very goals the law sets.

Moreover, the bias against forest plantations in environmental matters ends up extending to the economic and social spheres, since forestry has a significant influence on regional and local economies and employment—an aspect overlooked by those who exclude monocultures from a long-term climate strategy.

This biased view of forestry also poses a challenge to current and future sectoral authorities, as it imposes, from the outset, a restriction on the strategies that public forestry institutions may propose in the future.

In my opinion, it is unacceptable that the authorities of the Ministry of the Environment—assuming they played a leading role in drafting the Framework Law on Climate Change—impose entirely inappropriate restrictions on public forest management regarding what can and cannot be done in terms of emission reduction commitments. The authority in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture should have something to say about this. However, I fear that current authorities are more inclined toward the view reflected in the law than toward reclaiming the forestry sector as a key player in a climate strategy aimed at carbon neutrality.

All we can do is highlight this inconsistency and argue in every forum available to us that the ideological bias against forest plantations is, without a doubt, self-sabotage in meeting climate goals and developing a green economy for the next fifty years.