| The loss of old-growth temperate rainforests in Valdivia, Chile, a biodiversity hotspot, is of regional and international concern. Efforts are underway to preserve the few remnant old-growth forests that remain. The University Austral of Chile joined these efforts after becoming a concessionaire of the Llancahue watershed (1300 hectares), which includes 400 ha of one of the few remaining old-growth forests in Chile's central depression. This forest is also the primary watershed for the city of Valdivia (population 130,000) and provides 80% of the drinking water. In the past, the watershed was a state-owned protected area, but the citizenry lacked awareness and the state lacked the resources to protect it from cattle grazing and illegal poaching of old-growth trees; actions resulting in watershed degradation. In attempt to protect the watershed and create a public stake in it, the university proposed to work with the local tree poachers to manage the forest and create a sustainable, peri-urban park.;This thesis presents the case study of the Llancahue watershed to examine the benefits and barriers to watershed and forest management. As part of the university's pre-implementation planning, a stakeholder analysis of the local logging community and key institutional stakeholders was conducted. Our dataset used a snowball sample to conduct 68 semi-structured interviews with 15 loggers and 53 institutional stakeholders, stakeholder meetings (n=3), focus group tours of the Llancahue watershed (n=5) and informal interactions between November 2008 and February 2009. We found that the traditional state-protected area lacked the resources to address threats to the watershed and had unofficially adopted a policy of in-action. Although stakeholders are uncertain how a collaborative public-private partnership will work, they hope it will improve conservation efforts by collaboratively negotiating resources to achieve more effective conservation of the watershed. To help accomplish this, the University has proposed creating value-added products such as the extraction of timber from the second-growth forests, a platform for ecotourism, and environmental education programs. These products can help improve forest management, create new entrepreneurship, and promote environmental ethics and support amongst citizens, respectively. Our analysis highlights that conservation stewardship requires management and demonstrates why pure preservation efforts have failed in countries with limited resources for protected area management. This case study helps further our understanding of the multi-dimensional aspects of managing native forests with local people for biodiversity, forest, and water conservation. |
