Timber Crisis: 26 Sawmills Closed in Ñuble Between 2019 and 2024
Between 2019 and 2024, the number of sawmills in the Ñuble region dropped from a total of 73 to 47, representing a 35.6% decrease, according to the 2025 Chilean Forest Industry Directory, recently published by Infor, highlighting the severe crisis facing small and medium-sized timber enterprises.
According to the report, Ñuble is the region hardest hit by sawmill closures in the country, far exceeding the national average decline of 20.3%, from 957 sawmills in 2019 to 763 in 2024.
In fact, two months ago, the Alto Horizonte company's sawmill in San Carlos, which employed 100 people, closed its doors, confirming a countdown for the sector, which is facing a scenario of uncertainty regarding access to raw materials, emphasized Pymemad, the guild that brings together the country's small and medium-sized timber enterprises.
According to Michel Esquerré, national president of Pymemad, and Víctor Sandoval, regional president of Pymemad for Biobío-Ñuble, "the Chilean forestry sector faces a paradox that is destroying it: while we plant looking decades ahead, we make decisions looking only at the next quarter. This temporal disconnect is not sustainable."
They stated that this "destructive short-termism" manifests itself, in the realm of large companies, in unilateral price changes, in the reduction of commitments when temporary margins improve, and in the lack of long-term contracts; while, in the realm of the government, in the absence of a forestry policy since 2015, with working groups lacking binding power and with institutions like Infor and Conaf lacking effective support tools.
Esquerré emphasized the economic impact of this crisis on the territories, pointing to jobs lost both from the closure of sawmills and from staff reductions in other plants. "For each sawmill, one must consider, between direct and indirect jobs, around 150 people," he indicated. In this way, the 26 sawmills that have closed in Ñuble between 2019 and 2024 meant the destruction of 3,900 jobs, mainly in communes like Coelemu, Quirihue, Trehuaco, Chillán, and San Carlos. "This also encourages the forced migration of young people to cities and contributes to the loss of generational technical knowledge," he pointed out.
"This is an issue that politics seems to ignore; today, politics is not concerned with employability and SMEs, macro politics is focused on large economic groups," stated the guild leader, who lamented the lack of a promotion policy for medium and small forest owners. "Without promotion, there are no plantations," he added, alluding to the expiration in 2014 of the subsidy that financed plantations for four decades in Chile.
"If there is no promotion for small and medium-sized plantations, timber SMEs will disappear," warned Esquerré, who maintained that "this problem seems to matter to no government, they only worry about the short term, but in the forestry business, you plant the tree today and harvest it in 20 years; they have not given forestry policy the importance it deserves, they believe that helping small and medium owners has a stigma; and the Ministry of the Environment has not helped at all, it has been an enemy of the forestry sector."
The national president of Pymemad acknowledged progress in drafting the forestry promotion bill. "It has been a big step, they are more willing to talk, I would say that in this government there has been more progress than in previous ones, but that does not mean we stop complaining about this deterioration affecting the economy of the poorest communes, where timber SMEs provide employment. I think we must raise our voices, many sawmills have closed, this cycle cannot continue like this and we must sit down to talk seriously, governors, parliamentarians, government, large companies, and see what to do to stop the further deterioration of the productive ecosystem of the forestry sector, because it is very deteriorated and increasingly concentrated," he expressed. In this sense, he emphasized that one of the consequences of the absence of a forestry promotion policy has been the increase in the concentration of the forestry sector.
Esquerré argued that it is necessary to work on productive linkages between large companies and SMEs. In this regard, he acknowledged that there are dialogue spaces with those large companies. "We want it to be permanent and robust, but there are difficulties, it's not easy," he noted.
For his part, Víctor Sandoval, president of Pymemad Biobío Ñuble, declared that the "situation of SMEs is very fragile; if the market continues to concentrate, we SMEs will continue to disappear. And I don't think the industry wants us to end up as a hyper-concentrated market with two large companies. That's why I believe we have the opportunity to work on it; there are tables, for example, with CMPC we have been meeting for about three years and we have managed to place issues on the agenda, and although we are not advancing at the pace we would like, we consider that having that table, which is permanent, and achieving common ground, is something we appreciate."
Sandoval emphasized that "this is an industry where large companies and SMEs can eventually coexist, because there are spaces that allow for productive linkage and that is very valuable. So, I think we are not taking advantage of that opportunity we have and the opportunity the industry has to empower and develop SMEs. Today, the opposite effect is occurring, which is causing plant closures, and is resulting in significant impacts on jobs in the rural areas where our SMEs are located."
The regional leader highlighted that, "in Ñuble it is super important to consider that the forestry industry has a very relevant impact in communes that are, in a way, quite far from urban centers, for example, Trehuaco, Coelemu, San Carlos, and Yungay. So, the impacts that occur locally are super strong and many times are not so visible, because they are in areas that are not so accessible. I would say that the most affected region, in terms of plant closures and the impact on communities, is Ñuble. And I believe we must pay attention, together with the government and large companies, we must work so that this trend changes and changes for the better."
Local Economies
The impact on local economies is already being felt, with higher levels of unemployment in those communes with a forestry vocation, and the consequent loss of economic dynamism.
The mayor of Quirihue, Eduardo Redlich, acknowledged that the forestry crisis has hit local employment hard. "Companies at this time of year always started to ensure they had a good crew of people for the summer, but this year they haven't taken measures yet, because they also view the sector's situation with great suspicion. So there has been no increase in staffing for the summer and they have remained only with the people who work during the winter," he described.
The municipal chief emphasized the weight of forestry activity in the local economy and lamented the effect on unemployment. "The employment situation in our commune is terrible, we see it daily, because we receive numerous resumes for different areas. And these jobs in the forestry sector have decreased notably," he stated.
Likewise, he described the effect on the local economy, reflected, for example, in retail sales, which do not show the same dynamism as last year.
Bill
When asked about the forestry promotion bill repeatedly announced by the former Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, but which did not materialize; the current minister, Ignacia Fernández, assured that she will continue said work; in fact, she recently met with representatives of forestry and timber guilds, who expressed their concern about the closure of sawmills.
"We talked about the impact that the lack of raw materials has had on the forestry industry, especially on small and medium owners, the impact of forest fires and the absence of direct subsidies for plantations; they were good meetings in terms of building agreements on the contents of the bill, and what we did there was reaffirm the commitment precisely to a sustainable forest management bill, as we have called it."
"And why sustainable? -continued the minister- because we want to ensure conditions that enable reforestation, but that, unlike how it was in the past, be less intensive and therefore, more friendly with the challenges we also have in terms of sustainability. We are placing strong emphasis on forest management for timber production, more than for pulp or cellulose production, for example; that management also has to do with the balance between exotic plantations and native forest, which has also been greatly deteriorated by management problems in recent years; and everything related to buffer zones, interface zones, so that the forestry sector is not part of the problem in terms of fire generation, but rather part of the solution, that we can safeguard our forests with better buffer zones to prevent forest fires."
Fernández valued the agreements being worked on to reach a bill that, she assured, they will present during the current administration, although she acknowledged, "we will not manage to process it completely in the time we have left in government and that is why it is very important that the bill we submit has a significant agreement with the forestry world, so as to give continuity to its discussion in subsequent administrations."
Source:La Discución
