Encroached by pine and eucalyptus? A grounded theory on an environmental conflict between forest industry and smallholder livelihoods in Chile

Abstract

Abstract Plantation forestry has economic, social, and ecological potentials, such as the opportunity for jobs, income and economic development, or possible carbon storage and soil protection. However, plantation forestry, if inappropriately managed and spatially integrated, has been shown to raise environmental conflicts with stakeholders in the vicinity of plantations. To avoid and manage such conflicts, their root causes must be profoundly understood. Some conflicts have a distributional character and arise from differential or unjust access to resources. Others have causes that relate to perceptions and constructions of the natural environment, environmental values and norms and social legitimacy of livelihoods in the vicinity of plantation. Conflicts with such a constitutional character may become intractable if their root causes are not identified. This study addresses the situation of smallholders affected by the proximity of commercial forestry that has expanded vastly during the last decades. Based on a Grounded Theory approach, it disentangles the perceived impacts of pine and eucalyptus plantations on rural livelihoods. It shows that a profound environmental conflict is given, although this conflict is not prominent in the political discourse in Chile. The conflict consists of an ostensible level of conflict, which mainly relates to material impacts plantation impose to smallholder livelihoods. However, more profoundly, there is a fundamental conflict level, which comprises questions of illegitimacy of land use in the study site and a perceived erosion of rurality. It discusses potential strategies for conflict resolution and shows that current intents are prone to fail, since they address the ostensible level, but disregard the fundamental level of conflict. This conclusion is expected to shed light on the situation in other countries, where afforestation measures are currently undertaken.