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Portugal and Chile: Longing for sustainable forestry while rising from the
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Article  in  Environmental Science & Policy · March 2018

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2017.11.006

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Discussion

Portugal and Chile: Longing for sustainable forestry while rising from the
ashes
Susana Gómez-Gonzáleza,b,⁎, Fernando Ojedaa, Paulo M. Fernandesc
a
Departamento de Biología-IVAGRO, Universidad de Cádiz, Campus Río San Pedro, 11510, Puerto Real, Spain
b
Centre for Science and Resilience Research (CR)2, Blanco Encalada 2002, piso 4, Santiago, Chile
c
Centro de Investigação e Tecnologias Agroambientais e Biológicas (CITAB), Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Quinta de Prados, 5001-801, Vila Real,
Portugal

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The recent catastrophic wildfires in Portugal and Chile shared similar features, not just because they developed
Biodiversity under extreme weather conditions but also because extensive forest plantations were involved. Dense forest
Ecosystem services plantations of flammable pine and eucalypt species favor the development of high-intensity large fires, threa-
Fire ecology tening people and the forest industry sustainability under increasingly frequent and severe drought events.
Forest plantation
Preventive land-use planning and cost-effective fuel management are key elements of sustainable forestry.
Fuel management
Sustainability
Understanding the fire ecology context prior to plantation establishment is also crucial for the success of fire
management planning. Although the forest industry has contributed to the economy of these countries, improved
regulation and science-based management policies are strongly needed. Fuel treatment strategies can be opti-
mized by risk-based modeling approaches, and should be mandatory in wildland-urban interfaces. The tragedy
caused by these wildfires is an opportunity to change towards more sustainable landscape arrangements that
reconcile ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, and protection from life-threatening wildfires.

Last 17–21 June 2017, a large wildfire caused by faults in the
electricity distribution grid raged in central Portugal, killing and in-
juring respectively 64 and 254 people (BBC, 2017). Worldwide it was
the most tragic wildfire event since the 2009 Black Saturday fires in
Australia, burning ca. 30 kha in a rugged landscape extensively affor-
ested with eucalypt and pine plantations. Also in central Portugal, 45
human lives were further claimed by the unprecedented hurricane-
driven fires that burned ca. 200 kha on 15–16 October 2017. These
events resemble the mega-fires that occurred in Chile during the last
austral summer (December 2016–February 2017), causing at least 11
fatalities, affecting thousands of people, and destroying some towns
(CONAF, 2017a). More than half of the 600 kha burnt in Chile were
forest plantations akin to those in Portugal (CONAF, 2017a). Fast-
growing, high-density forest stands planted for commercial purposes
are highly flammable and favor the development of large and severe
wildfires when established over large continuous tracts of the landscape
(Fernandes et al., 2016, Fig. 1). Because of this, the sustainability of the
forest industry and the effectiveness of environmental policies are
currently under debate in the media (BBC, 2017).
Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of large
fires worldwide (Jolly et al., 2015). When extreme fire weather
conditions combine with abundant fuel, fire spread and intensity sur-
pass the capacity of any fire suppression organization. Effects of climate
change on the fire regime are out of human control but we can work to
re-shape the composition and quantity of fuels in our landscapes
making them less prone to large fires in anticipation of a warmer future.
In this sense, preventive land-use planning and cost-effective fuel
management are key elements of sustainable forestry. Reducing fuel
continuity and load by pruning and thinning reduces fire intensity and
the likelihood of crown fire occurrence in Pinus radiata (Cruz et al.,
2017) and Pinus pinaster plantations (Fernandes and Rigolot, 2007), at
least under non-extreme weather conditions. Prescribed underburning
is the most effective way of tackling surface fuel accumulation, but its
feasibility is determined by bark thickness (hence by tree size and
species; Bellows et al., 2016) and can favor fire-adapted weeds (Úbeda
and Sarricolea, 2016). In the case of eucalypt plantations, recent re-
search indicates that fuel removal is needed at shorter intervals (e.g.
disk harrowing every 2–6 years) than commonly recommended, parti-
cularly when the terrain is steep and productivity is high (Mirra et al.,
2017). Fuel-treated areas need to be strategically placed in the land-
scape considering not only the fire risk to human population and re-
levant ecosystem services, but also the effectiveness (i.e. likelihood of

⁎
Corresponding author at: Departamento de Biología-IVAGRO, Universidad de Cádiz, Campus Río San Pedro, 11510, Puerto Real, Spain.
E-mail address: susana.gomez@uca.es (S. Gómez-González).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.11.006
Received 24 July 2017; Received in revised form 7 November 2017; Accepted 10 November 2017
1462-9011/ © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article as: Gómez-González, S., Environmental Science and Policy (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.11.006
S. Gómez-González et al.
Fig. 1. Examples of wildfires in forest plantations from Portugal and Chile. A) Fire burning an unmanaged Eucalyptus globulus plantation in Terras de Bouro (NW Portugal), in September
2009. B) Burned landscape after a wildfire in an extensive forest plantation (dominated by Eucalyptus spp. and Pinus radiata) that occurred during the austral summer of 2014 in
Valparaíso (Central Chile).
impacting wildfire growth and severity) of a given fuel treatment under
given environmental and topographic conditions (Cruz et al., 2017).
The fuel treatment effort should of course be commensurate with the
likelihood of experiencing a wildfire; on average and per year, fuels are
treated on one fifth of the forest industry estate in Portugal, with
wildfire affecting only 0.7% of the area (CELPA, 2015), and while this
indicates a successful fire management program it also suggests that
cost effectiveness is low. Integrated fire-forest management planning
and risk-based decision support systems based on modeling approaches
assist on identifying and reconciling optimal harvesting and fuel
treatment schedules to reduce fire losses and increase timber produc-
tion (Acuna et al., 2010; Calkin et al., 2011; González-Olabarria and
Pukkala, 2011). Nonetheless, despite significant scientific advances on
modeling approaches to support management decisions, more research
is needed to reduce uncertainties related to climate change (Calkin
et al., 2011).
Extensive unmanaged fast-growth forest plantations located in the
rural-urban interface are threatening the resident human population
and they should be prioritized in management planning (Reszca and
Fuentes, 2015; Bartlett, 2012). Fuel load reduction techniques com-
bined with a minimum buffer zone of 150 m is advised when pine
plantations adjoin urban areas (Bartlett, 2012). In Chile, for example,
measures of fire prevention have targeted mainly the Valparaíso region
in response to several tragic fires that have impacted the wildland-
urban interface in the last years (Úbeda and Sarricolea, 2016). How-
ever, the Maule and Bío-Bío regions, which concentrate the bulk of
Chile’s forest mass, deserve more attention because of high population
density in rural areas and increasingly frequent mega-fires (CONAF,
2017b).
Commercial forestry and farming account for 24% of the net an-
thropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, in part due to forest fires (Core
Writing Team et al., 2014). Nevertheless, the increasing global rate of
afforestation is frequently misinterpreted as a positive trend justified by
the possibility of this sector becoming a net CO2 sink in the next future
(Core Writing Team et al., 2014). The Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation of United Nations (FAO, 2016) reported that Chile increased its
forest cover, although it corresponded in part to the replacement of
native forests by commercial exotic plantations (Miranda et al., 2016).
The use of the term “forests” to jointly encompass commercial tree
plantations and native forests is not appropriate since their ecological
processes, as well as the ecosystem services they bring, are profoundly
different. Unlike native forests, pine and eucalypt plantations can ac-
tually and substantially decrease water yield, which offsets their alleged
carbon sequestration benefits (Farley et al., 2005). Regional land use
planning could be strategically designed to improve both fire mitigation
2
Environmental Science and Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
and water provision. In this sense, it would be desirable to reduce fuel
homogeneity at the landscape scale by diversifying land use and re-
storing native forest patches as buffer zones, particularly in steep slopes
and along the watersheds (Little et al., 2015).
Plantation forestry in Portugal and Chile has contributed to their
macro-economic development and is a relevant source of income for
farmers that own land unsuitable for agriculture. However, the rapid
establishment of extensive commercial tree plantations has often been
accompanied by deficient environmental regulations, loss of biodi-
versity and acute conflicts with local communities (Miranda et al.,
2016; Mateus and Fernandes, 2014). Despite that, this model has been
regarded as successful and sustainable (FAO, 2016), and did expand to
other countries in South America (e.g. Uruguay and Brazil). From 1974
to date, near 3 million ha of land have been planted with exotic trees in
Chile with the help of public subsidies, causing the loss of hundreds of
thousands of hectares of native forest (Miranda et al., 2016) plus the
concomitant increase in fire danger. In Portugal, around 1.5 million ha
are occupied by Pinus pinaster and Eucalyptus globulus (16% of the
country) (Rego et al., 2013), but most of the stands are either under-
managed or abandoned due to decreasing rural population and dire
economic prospects. In many areas of the Iberian Peninsula, these
plantations have replaced native Mediterranean heathlands of high
ecological value, jeopardizing their biodiversity (e.g. Andrés and Ojeda,
2002). Besides, the establishment of forest plantations generally needs
aggressive soil preparation techniques (e.g. ploughing and terracing)
that eliminate native vegetation and decimate soil seed-banks. As the
complexity of the root system diminishes, soil erosion risk increases,
particularly when tree canopy elimination by fire leaves the altered soil
open to the erosive effects of wind and precipitation (Martins et al.,
2013). Therefore, most of the negative effects commonly linked to
wildfires (irreversible loss of biodiversity and dramatic soil erosion) are
actually promoted by afforestation per se. Paradoxically, forestry cor-
porations and governments justify afforestation programs and policies
by the need to protect biodiversity and recover degraded soils (CONAF,
2016).
Understanding fire regimes and their ecological and evolutionary
context is crucial to develop a sustainable forest policy in fire-prone
ecosystems. Central Chile and Portugal are fire-prone because of their
Mediterranean-type climate and its marked seasonality that makes ve-
getation dry and flammable during summer. Although similar in cli-
mate and vegetation physiognomy (sclerophyllous shrublands), these
regions have different fire histories (on an evolutionary time-scale) that
explain differences in plant functional traits in response to fire.
Lightning-ignited fires have not been frequent in Central Chile during
the Quaternary due to particular oceanic and topographic features, such
S. Gómez-González et al.
as the cold Humboldt Current and the Andes mountain range, that limit
the formation of convective thunderstorms (Keeley et al., 2012). As a
consequence, adaptive responses to fire in the Chilean vegetation are
not as frequent or developed as in other Mediterranean-type regions
and current anthropogenic fires have detrimental ecological effects
(Gómez-González et al., 2017). Hence, wildfires must be suppressed in
Central Chile for the sake of biodiversity conservation. Instead, most
native vegetation in Portugal is dominated by fire-adapted species as a
result of a long history of recurrent wildfires and its role as a driver of
plant evolution in the western Mediterranean Basin (Keeley et al.,
2012). However, since Mediterranean plant species are generally
adapted to specific fire regimes and not to fire per se, both the complete
suppression and the increase in the frequency or severity of fire (in
relation to the natural fire regime) will negatively impact plant di-
versity (Keeley et al., 2012). Despite the ecological differences between
Portugal and Central Chile, human pressure is strong in both regions
and fire frequency from human-made ignitions is sufficiently high to
threaten the natural resilience of vegetation in some areas. In this sense,
recently developed models could be used to design accurate fuel
treatment planning that considers the natural fire return interval of the
ecosystem (Rachmawati et al., 2016). In addition, environmental edu-
cation policies should be focused not only on helping people understand
and control human activities as the most likely source of ignition, but
also understand the fire ecology of the ecosystems they live in.
The environmental and socio-economic impacts of wildfires in Chile
and Portugal might even increase in the next decades as higher fuel
hazard from commercial forestry and land abandonment will be ac-
companied by an upward trend in drought (Moritz et al., 2012). This is
expected to threaten the economic sustainability of the forest industry
in the long term (Rego et al., 2013). Forestry needs better regulation
through environmental laws and regional planning to optimize plan-
tation design, ensure adequate fuel management, and diminish risks to
people. Public subsidies to forestry would be justifiable only if efficient
fire management is guaranteed. On the other hand, forest sustainability
certifications that enhance the market value of timber (e.g. Forest
Stewardship Council) should explicitly highlight the importance of
implementing fire prevention and biodiversity protection strategies to
accomplish their criteria (Forest Stewardship Council, 1996).
The tragedy caused by the 2017 wildfires is an opportunity, in Chile,
Portugal and elsewhere, to change towards less fire prone, more diverse
and resilient landscapes providing sustainable ecosystem services to
society. Although the current forest policy of Chile recognizes these
needs and includes the restoration of native forests in its objectives, the
policy spirit continues to be the expansion of the forestry industry
suggesting that the old model paradigm will remain for the next two
decades (CONAF, 2016). The complex socio-ecological context of these
countries – increasingly dwindling rural population, overwhelming
dominance of privately held land, high fire risk precluding investment
in options other than short-rotation forestry – suggests that more sus-
tainable, resilient landscapes can only be achieved through institutional
regulations and subsidy policies that assure the maintenance of key
ecosystem services for their population’s wellbeing.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by project HERRIZA (CGL2015-64007-P,
MINECO-FEDER, Spain), Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica
y Tecnológica (FONDAP/CONICYT 15110009, Chile), project FIREXTR
(PTDC/ATPGEO/0462/2014) with funds from FEDER—European
Regional Development Fund (COMPETE 2020–POCI) and Fundação
para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.
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Susana Gómez-González is a researcher interested in plant community ecology,
S. Gómez-González et al.
particularly in fire ecology and plant invasions in Mediterranean-type ecosystems.
Fernando Ojeda is an Associate Professor of Botany with research interests in (i) the role
of fire in the evolution of mediterranean plants; (ii) the ecology and evolution of
heathland plants; and (iii) the biogeography, biodiversity and conservation of
Mediterranean heathlands.
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Environmental Science and Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Paulo M. Fernandes is an Associate Professor of Forestry. His research is mainly focused
on the behaviour and ecology of wildland fire from the forest and fire management
perspectives, mainly in topics of field-based assessment and modelling of fire character-
istics and effects in various vegetation types. Current interests include also the drivers of
fire regimes, large fires, and fire danger rating.