Valuation of Nature Resources and Public-Private Conservation Policy in Chile

Résumé En

Cordillera Pelada’s Valdivian rainforests in Chile have faced intensive timber extraction for decades, encouraged by the State which, until 2012, subsidized 75% of profitable exotic species plantations. But their value as reservoirs of biodiversity has also been evidenced by the existence of public protected areas in the region since 1964. An important turn occurred in 2003, when the Valdivian Coastal Reserve was created, a 600 km² protected area owned and administered by the American NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC). This private initiative fostered the public conservation policy, since TNC gave a further 100 km² area to the Chilean state for the creation of the first National Park in the region. This original public-private partnership, seemingly contrary to a global, neo-liberal trend in the management of natural resources, also appeared to be a successful turning point in the local way of thinking about the benefits associated with Valdivian forests. The subsistence-based local population, living from marine resources, is accustomed to seeing only the productive value of the forests. People are now rejecting the “old model” and are trying out new forms of economic values, in particular (eco-) tourism. However, who is really benefiting from this post-extractive period? This communication will check whether the new protection framework is really efficient against logging, and whether communities located in the buffer zone are on an equal footing concerning the access to local development projects, in a context where every stakeholder is actually competing to take maximum advantage of the new conservation requirements.