Some excepts from the following links:
During the last centuries approximately 20 million hectares of Chilean native forests were burned, some of them several times. Seven millions are considered old growth, including protection, high production, impoverished and depleted areas.
Ruling against foreign resource exploitation, Chile's Supreme Court Wednesday struck down a plan to log in one of the world's most significant coastal temperate rainforests. Trillium's Rio Condor project held the rights to 625,000 acres of land, 317,000 acres of which is forested
But in a May press conference, Tompkins and his attorney, accompanied by leaders of Chile's largest environmental groups, presented information to counter a "harassment campaign" they said had been waged by the government. Delpiano says the government is still considering a law to limit the amount of land foreigners can buy, which may affect future Tompkins land purchases. Tompkins' supporters called the opposition a smokescreen for well-connected timber and business interests who want to stop Chile's growing environmental movement at all costs.
In order to keep NAFTA expansion alive, Canada is acting as a stand-in for the United States where political opposition has derailed NAFTA expansion negotiations until after the 1996 Presidential elections. Six years after the retirement of General Pinochet the current Chilean government is unable to implement progressive labour reforms in the face of strong opposition from business.
The upper Biobiacute, where the Ralco Dam is planned, is home to the Pehuenche group of the Mapuche Indians, the last group of Mapuche who continue their traditional lifestyle. Critics of Ralco also say that construction would violate the new Chilean Environmental and Indigenous Peoples Laws and prior agreements between ENDESA and the World Bank.
A rising star among Chilean environmental organizations, Defenders of the Chilean Forest is the only one solely dedicated to ecologically sustainable forestry and the preservation of native forests throughout Chile. At the same time, Defensores supports the legal institutionalization of ecologically sustainable forestry, as well as incentives for protecting privately held ancient forest.
Throughout South America, large-scale resettlement and agricultural and resource development projects claimed much of the 645,000 square kilometers of forest lost in this region between 1980 and 1990 -- the greatest amount of forest loss in the world during these years.