Identification of Priority Areas for Conservation in Southcentral Chile : The Forests of Montane Mexico and Temperate South America

There is an increasing awareness in Chile of the need to improve the representation of the country's forest types in the national network of protected areas, and to reduce the impacts of the native forest conversion to other land uses. One promising strategy is to use the principles of systematic conservation planning to identify important areas for the conservation of biodiversity. In this chapter we use information on the vulnerability of native forest to threatening processes and information on the distribution of forest types to systematically determine priorities for biodiversity conservation in the temperate forest region of south-central Chile. We find that the existing reserve network covers approximately 12 of the study region, and that only 53 of the area of native forest estimated to be present before European settlement remained in 1997. Temperate forest is now largely restricted to the upper elevations of the Andean and coastal ranges, within a matrix of pasture, agriculture and plantations. We develop a model of the conversion of native forest to plantations and predict conversion to be more likely in warm and low rainfall areas that are close to towns and roads and on red clay and mixed alluvial soils. We argue that the priority areas for conservation should be currently unprotected areas that are vulnerable to plantation conversion and that, if lost or degraded, will result in conservation targets being compromised. We find the Evergreen forest type to be a priority for conservation owing to its lack of representation in the existing reserve network and the degree to which it has been cleared. By focusing our conservation efforts on areas with the greatest conservation value and the highest likelihood of losing significant portions of this value, we will be able to achieve maximum impact for conservation investments in south-central Chile. © CAB International 2007