INVESTIGADORES
FERNANDEZ Maria Elena
artículos
Título:
Towards a sustainable forestry development in Patagonia: truths and myths of environmental impact of plantations with fast growing conifers.
Autor/es:
GYENGE, J.E.; FERNÁNDEZ, M.E.; RUSCH, V.; SARASOLA, M.; SCHLICHTER T.
Revista:
The Americas Journal of Plant Science and Biotechnology
Editorial:
Global Science Books
Referencias:
Año: 2010 vol. 3 p. 9 - 22
ISSN:
1752-3877
Resumen:
In NW Patagonia region, Argentina,
South-America, there are about 70,000 ha of planted forests replacing
from native forests to grasslands with different degrees of
deterioration due to previous land use. Although forestry development
has been quite slow in this region compared to other regions of the
country, it is expected that this activity will be increasing in the
future due to provincial and national government policies of forestry
incentives. In general, only scarce information is available about the
environmental impact of forestation in the region. Our objective was to
bring together the knowledge about the changes in biodiversity, water
cycle and water resources, soil characteristics and the risk of
invasion of introduced exotic fast-growing coniferous species on native
ecosystems. The analyses revealed that the greatest changes in
biodiversity, water consumption and invasion risk occurred when the
introduction of trees was in grasslands compared to forest or
shrublands. However, from our results we can conclude that, at the
current developmental stage of forestry activity in Patagonia, the
negative environmental impact is very low or even nil, with the
positive impacts economic and social- possibly being higher and leading
to a more positive balance as a whole. However, we recognize that
potential negative impacts, whose magnitude will depend on several
aspects discussed in the paper, could increase in the future in
relation to the expansion of the forested areas. With the available
information we can then formulate prescriptions and management
strategies for exotic systems, in order to guarantee the long term
sustainability of the activity. In this regard, we have the opportunity
of developing a sustainable production activity from the very
beginning.