One of the most diverse forests in the Americas
Text: Gary Hughes	Photo: **

• The Coastal Range Coalition
• Biodiversity
• Cultural diversity
• History of temperate rainforest
• Threats to the rainforest
• Tourism

    The last frontier of Chile’s old growth forests faces extinction and if direct action is not taken to counteract the loss of biodiversity, they have no chance at survival.  A group of twelve  NGO’s, including visionaries of scientific, environmental, indigenous, and social stability, have joined in order to save this precious forest.  This organic effort is known as the Coalicion para la Conservacion de la Cordillera de la Costa, or COALICION, and now works to devise an alternative route of sustainability, which includes the creation of new, protected areas, respect for the indigenous inhabitants, and the diversion of harmful projects from the temperate forest.  The only hope we have in fighting the threat of extinction is that we act together with the knowledge of what is most beneficent for all, earth and people.  
    Contained within 440,000 hectares, one third of the world’s temperate rain forest (and most of what remains in Chile) and an extraordinary array of endemic species thrive.  These diverse temperate forests are the ancestors of the habitats from the tertiary period, (7 to ll million years ago) and also the environmental link to South American, as well as Gondwanan (presently New Zealand and Australia), natural history. They bear witness to millions of years of ecological trends and are vitally important to our understanding of ecology. Miniature marsupials named Monito de Monte (dromiciops australis) that have evolved separately from their Gondwana cousins, find their habitat specifically here. The smallest deer in the world, Pudu (pudu puda) flourish in the coastal forest. Other species include: huillín (lutra provacaux) a large river otter; Huet-Huet (Ptereptochos tarnii), an understory black bird; the forest frog (hylorina sylvatica); Alerce (Fitzroya Cupressoides) the second oldest tree species in the world (up to 3600 years old) are rapidly endangered. This unique flora, fauna, vertebrate endemism of the southern South America species, existing because of long isolation from  Gondwanan cousins, is explicitly clear in that the average number of genus per woody species is much higher than the temperate forests of north America, Europe and Asia (Armesto, Rozzi, Caspersen, 1996). Nestled along a coastal strip 200km long and 40km wide, is a strongly essential part of the temperate forests. Not only are the coastal forests isolated from their Tertiary cousins, but also from the rest of the forest of South America, adding to their unique biodiversity.  Over 400 species of higher plant species have been recorded. 90% of these plant species and 45% of vertebrate species are endemic. 

All of the temperate forest, including flora, fauna, animals and humans, will be displaced, degraded, or destroyed in the next two decades if nothing is done. Why? Because of the world market’s desire for wood chips and the lax environmental laws of Chile that allow multinational corporations to log at the expense of ecology Because of logging, Chile’s Region VII now possesses only 0.8% of old growth forests. Region VIII, 3.6%.  Region IX, 13.0%.  Although the old growth forests of Chile swiftly shrink, the logging industry and exports of wood chips rapidly rise. According to a 1999 US international trade commission report, production is projected to double by 2025. The central bank of Chile reported in a 1995 study that the forest cover recedes by 2% to 7 % each year, and the old growth forests, at this rate, will disappear in the next twenty years. Disappear. With the depletion of the temperate rain forest, the introduction of exotic species replaces them. While the temperate forests still remain, this causes their fragmentation, and is a direct danger to their extinction. “Today, south American temperate forests are highly endangered because of their reduced and isolated geographical range (Armesto, 1996). Rapid de forestation and widespread introduction of exotic timber species are the major immediate threats to biological diversity in these forests, acting at a much faster rate than other drivers of global change, such as climate warming or industrial pollutants. These processes are reducing biological diversity and jeopardize the potential for native species to respond to future climate change (Armesto, Rozzi, Caspersen, 1996)”.  Slowly diversity is weeded out in exchange for monocultures of pine and eucalyptus. This is how production is allowed to increase--with a promise, although hazardous, to replant.  The plant and animal diversity of the forests shrinks to near nothing.

So why in a scarcely populated area of mostly indigenous and campesinos would the government decide it is a high priority to build a highway?  Perhaps to finish an already initiated project.  Perhaps to connect the country.  Perhaps for the benefit of corporations looking for an low cost and low maintenance backyard to dig up.  Already, near Puerto Montt, one of the largest wood chip mills  of its kind has been planned and begun construction by the Boise Cascade company, under the Chilean name Cascada.  The mill and oriented strand board plant have a direct ecological foot print of over 400 acres.  The projected yearly production exceeds 12,500 acres of forest, including old growth, converted to wood chips.  The coastal highway intended to link the country will be used more often by corporate interests than the scarce inhabitants of the coastal range.  A geopolitical agenda surpasses the immediate need for the road, namely for the sake of profits.  True, there may be some semblance of instant gratification economic gain, but sustainable profits will be lost for the future.