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Original article: ¿Cuál fue el estado del bosque nativo en el 2025?

This March, the Country Report 2025 was released, detailing the environmental condition of Chile. The document covers topics such as pollution, water resources, biodiversity, land use planning, energy, and mining.

Among the key subjects in the report are native forests, which play a vital role in Earth’s ecosystems by providing water regulation, non-timber forest resources, and biodiversity conservation. Additionally, they are crucial allies in the fight against climate change due to their capacity for carbon capture and storage.

According to the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf), Chile has a total of 14,728,482 hectares of native forests, with 81% located between the La Araucanía and Magallanes regions. However, between 2001 and 2023, the country has lost nearly 400,000 hectares due to changes in land cover and land use.

The report indicates that historically, prior to European colonization, central and southern Chile were primarily covered in natural forests and shrublands, but since then, these areas have diminished by more than 50% due to their conversion into grasslands, agricultural areas, shrublands, and industrial plantations. Many forests were destroyed in significant fires set to clear land for agriculture and livestock during the Euro-Chilean colonization. Furthermore, the incentive for establishing forestry plantations, promoted by Decree Law 701 in 1974, significantly contributed to the loss of native forests from then until now.

Climate Change, Mega-Drought, and Mega-Fires

Forest fires are another major impact on native forests. Over the last 50 years, the annual average of fires in the country has hovered around 5,600 events, affecting more than 74,500 hectares. However, the mega-drought lasting over a decade, combined with heatwaves, has led to an increase in this average. The fires of 2017 and 2023 resulted in the loss of more than 570,000 and 430,000 hectares, respectively, primarily affecting forestry plantations—this land type represents nearly 50% of the total burned area.

The report points out that invasive species such as radiata pine (Pinus radiata) and eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) significantly increase the risk of large fires. «According to official data, forestry plantations are the land cover that burns the most in Chile,» commented Alejandro Miranda, a researcher at the Department of Forestry Sciences at the University of La Frontera.

The occurrence of large fires depends on multiple factors, including vegetation composition and structure, heterogeneity, continuity, as well as topographic variables like terrain slope and complexity. In recent significant fires, a strong influence of meteorological conditions in a prolonged drought context has been observed, stated Miranda, who is also a researcher at the Center for Climate Science and Resilience CR2.

“Well-known variables such as high temperatures, strong winds, and low humidity contribute to fire spread. However, these increasingly frequent weather conditions, when meeting extensive and continuous forestry plantations with high fuel loads, favor the emergence of large-scale fires,” Miranda added, noting that “the central-southern region of Chile, where most plantations are located, also has the highest population density, increasing the likelihood of fire ignitions. This combination has resulted in the major fires recorded over the past decade being predominantly fueled by forestry plantations.”

Regarding climate change, the report indicates that recent weather conditions, with more heatwaves and prolonged droughts, are creating favorable scenarios for more destructive fires. “In this climatic context, the fire season has not only extended but also increased in simultaneity and duration, resulting in a substantial rise in the occurrence of mega-fires and consequently the total area burned in central-southern Chile,” explained Mauro González, a researcher at CR2 and an academic at Universidad Austral de Chile.

Alongside fires, the report states that climate change is causing direct impacts on vegetation, chiefly through the reduction of annual growth rates in native trees, which may be attributed to drier and hotter conditions in recent decades.

It has also been determined that the decline in the foliage of the Araucaria tree is linked to an attack by a native fungus, which may have become a negative factor due to rising winter temperatures, consecutive years of droughts, and reduced snow cover.

Furthermore, the carbon capture capacity of native forests is also diminished by climate change. In the case of larch forests, the “ability of these forests to act as sinks decreases significantly under warm and dry summer conditions, especially when maximum temperatures exceed 19 °C, as this reduces photosynthesis and increases carbon loss due to ecosystem respiration,” the report states.

Among the important impacts of climate change is the rapid browning of 90% of the sclerophyllous forests in the central region within just one hundred days. “It has been determined that the greenness of the forest rapidly diminished due to the extreme drought that occurred in 2019, which took place during a period of mega-drought that has been ongoing since 2010. This dry spell was one of the driest events recorded in the world’s Mediterranean forests,” commented Rocío Urrutia, a researcher at the Department of Forestry Sciences at the University of La Frontera and CR2.

The majority of the forest has suffered functional damages, and according to ongoing studies, it is estimated that in the Valparaíso and Metropolitan regions, 11% of the sclerophyllous forest area was able to withstand the event, while 83% recovered its historical greenness and 17% failed to recover. “We are also advancing our understanding of the mechanisms associated with the decline of this forest and the species’ tolerance to drought,” Urrutia stated.

Policies Supporting Native Forests

Given all that has been highlighted, various efforts are underway to aid the recovery of native forests. Among these is the latest Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which aims to reforest the country with 200,000 hectares. However, this policy has received criticism. “The update of the 2025 NDC maintained the afforestation of 100,000 hectares without species limitations, which will likely correspond to industrial plantations of pines and eucalyptus subject to clear-cutting every twelve to twenty years,” explained Antonio Lara, emeritus professor at the Faculty of Forestry Sciences and Natural Resources at Universidad Austral de Chile and CR2 researcher.

The academic added that “the renewal of the NDC did not consider the evidence-based recommendations presented by CR2 that afforestation should only be with native species, which bring all the benefits that plantations remove.” Alongside this, he noted that “according to CR2 research, this NDC will promote the risk of fires, reduced water flows, and carbon capture in the long run.”

The authors of the chapter on native forests propose various initiatives to protect and recover these ecosystems, including increasing bonuses for the Native Forest Law, enhancing training for small and medium landowners, creating the Resilient Forest Fund to integrate different existing resources aimed at recovering degraded forests, and directing resources to restore priority areas.

Thus, the report suggests that a “combination of incentives, training, organization of small landowners, and smart oversight could not only accelerate the recovery of degraded forests but also reduce the rate of degradation and transition toward more sustainable forest management.”

La entrada State of Chile’s Native Forests in 2025: A Comprehensive Overview se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.