This is a CTP of initiative: La Via Campesina/ANAMURI (Chile)
This CTP refers to the changes that resulted in the sanction of a new law of reform of the decree law 701 that regulated the forestry activity. The validity of Decree Law 701 had been extended in 1998 until 2011. In January of that year, Law 20,488 again extended its validity for two more years.
Decree 701 provided for a subsidy of up to 75 percent of the costs of clearing land, planting and managing forest production (arguing that this activity reduced the soil erosion process). Unlike the current legal framework, the new law of 2011 created the category of medium-sized forest owners (up to 100 hectares), also subject to special benefits, and gives special incentives to indigenous communities that forest their lands.
In this way, the peasant producers are encouraged to add their work and their lands, spaces that were at their margins and beyond their reach, to the circuits of the forest industry. This implies a deep transformation of the agroecology of the territory, as farms previously dedicated to the small agricultural production -where coexisting wheat plantations, horticulture, small livestock, fallow sites and small forest production- were colonized by forest monoculture.
The extension of forest production to marginal lands caused multiple environmental and social tensions in the south of the country. Coexistence with the forest complex is not easy, threatening the viability of peasant economies, which are affected both by plantations of exotic species and by the operation of pulp-processing companies. The most direct way in which forest plantations affect agriculture is because of the high use they make of water sources - especially underground water - which competes with the use of the same by peasant communities.
"The problem they plant very close to the waterwheels then the pines will take all the water. Nor are they worthy, as the law says they have to plant thirty meters of native trees so that this waterwheel does not dry and they don't do it. And we have been fighting, here the whole sector we have a fight with the Mininco Company."
The advance of forest production also generated environmental conflicts caused by the contamination of water courses and the increase of the danger of fires near the lands of the Mapuche peasants. The frequency of the fires became a critical situation that provoked great controversy since the Mapuche communities and the forest producers accuse each other of being the cause of the same ones.
In this context, ANAMURI incorporated as one of its claims that the benefits generated by Decree Law 701 and the laws that modified it not be extended again.
The development of the forest industry in southern Chile experienced a great growth in a process of co-production between public policies, natural conditions and private capital. The benefits offered by the new legislation provoked a deep transformation of the geography and economy of southern Chile. This process was accompanied by the finish of the agrarian reform policy that had been implemented in Chile until the military coup of 1973.
In this way, the process of land distribution to peasants who were being implemented during the agrarian reform was replaced by a process of land concentration in the hands of large forestry companies.
National forestry development law 20.488, generated a new process of co-production since its sanction allowed the emergence of a new actor in the sector: medium forest owner. In this way, many small farmers and peasants reconverted and abandoned traditional agricultural production by forest production. This transformation resulted in agricultural and peasant lands (which functioned as a refuge for this type of activity) to incorporate the dominant industrial production.
But in addition, the proximity of the forest plantations of the peasant lands made this type of farms become a focus of environmental danger because of the contamination of the waters and the danger of fire. Likewise, the advance of forest production affects the value of peasant land: But in addition, the proximity of the forest plantations of the peasant lands made this type of farms become a focus of environmental danger because of the contamination of the waters and the danger of fire. Likewise, the advance of forest production affects the value of peasant land:
"Yes, the pines do that, no, and they are all surrounded by pine trees up there, because the forest companies has devastated them, encloses them and encloses them and finally they are forced to sell their land at a very low price."
The increase in the frequency of forest fires in forest plantations in the regions of Biobío and La Araucanía led to the destruction of thousands of hectares of forest plantations and agricultural crops, but also caused hundreds of families to lose their homes, Warehouses, work tools and crops. These fires occurred in a region that had already been affected by an earthquake followed by a tsunami in February 2010.
The ANAMURI, developed an important task of material assistance to those affected by the fires. They requested support from teachers at the University of Concepción for the implementation of a diagnosis of fire damage to peasant economies. The results of this work showed a double transformation of peasant politics. On the one hand, the reorientation from a policy of negotiation and opposition with the forest industry to a policy of recovery of peasant identities. So there is a refocusing from the single demand for land to a broader demand that involves the complexity of land appropriation, which is not bare land but inhabited by nature, people, water, seeds.
Law 20,488 was enacted in 2011 to extend the validity of the benefits established by 1974's decree law 701. This decree was a key issue in the process of agrarian counter-reform that began after the coup d'état of 1973. In this way, the new government stopped the distribution of land developed under the agrarian reform. A first adaptation of the decree took place in 1998 with the enactment of Law 19,561 which established an extension of the benefits received by the forestry operations until January 2011.
One of the events related to this CTP was the earthquake that struck the central and southern part of the country on February 27, 2010. The earthquake was one of the strongest that Chile suffered in its history and caused multiple damages throughout area. In addition, the earthquake also produced a tsunami that affected the entire coast of the Bío Bío region.
The areas most affected by the earthquake were small towns located in rural areas and especially essential public services such as the distribution of drinking water and sewage. It also showed the inability of the state to provide adequate responses to the needs generated by the natural disaster.
To this experience were added several outbreaks of fire in early 2012 that further aggravated the situation of rural people in the regions of Bío Bío and Araucanía. These fires unleashed a great controversy between the great forest producers and the Mapuche communities. The first reported that the fires had been provoked by activists and initiated legal proceedings against indigenous leaders by these actions. On the other hand, the mapuches raised that the fires were due to that the forest did not meet the minimum requirements of prevention of these events as the one to leave spaces without sowing as a firewall.
This CTP is crossed by different types of contestation. On the one hand, the tension generated between two antagonistic production models: on the one hand, small family and peasant agriculture, and on the other, large-scale forest production.This tension was sharpened from the sanction of decree law 701, generating a dispute for land and water. But as of the law 20488, this dispute was aggravated generating a disjunction between the peasant farmers themselves.
Peasants and small producers could obtain additional subsidies if they planted trees. In this way, the forestry activity was related to the peasant families playing the politics of the desires. Families are placed on the dilemma of, on the one hand, rejecting the forest penetration of their territories and, on the other hand, seeking some form of inclusion in this model, becoming small forest owners. The advance of forestry production also had other dilemmas, as abandoning subsistence agriculture to engage in forestry production, many rural villagers had to be employed by forestry companies to earn their living. In their search for survival, they have no alternative but to desire what they reject.
Against this, ANAMURI promoted the recovery of agricultural practices as a form of resistance to the advance of forestry. This recovery was thought in economic and productive terms, but also from the symbolic and political.
The CTP occurred after the enactment of Law 20,488. Until that time, conflicts with forest production were limited to the demand expressed by the peasants against the advance of the forests of exotic species. With the law, the conflict became a dilemma of the peasants themselves and their relationship with forest production.
Organizations like ANAMURI, had been claiming that the benefits stipulated by decree 701 and the laws that modified them ceased. The campaigns carried out by ANAMURI and other peasant organizations denote a certain level of anticipation, but provided for the changes that were implemented with Law 20,488 in favor of small producers.
Faced with the tensions and conflicts generated in the framework of this CTP, ANAMURI evaluated that it was necessary to incorporate new learning. For this reason, the organization partnered with academics from the University of Concepción to do a survey in the territory affected by the changes generated to evaluate new lines of action.
However, peasant communities in the Biobío region have a long history of learning accumulation. They have occupied areas of refuge and have long adapted to adverse conditions and the pressure of the dominant economies. Faced with the ubiquitous presence of forestry, they developed new ways of adaptation, negotiation and resistance. This is why, faced with the massive and inevitable presence of the forest industry, its actions are strategic.
In this scenario, there was a double transformation of peasant politics. On the one hand, the reorientation from a policy of negotiation and opposition with the industry - agriculture or forestry - to a policy of recovery of peasant identities. So there is a refocusing from the single demand for land to a broader demand that involves the complexity of land appropriation, which is not bare land but inhabited by nature, people, water, seeds. In this context, and in the face of the growing agro-industrial monopoly of seed production, regaining control over a large genetic pool of seeds is a priority objective for the peasant world.
Stay informed. Subscribe for project updates by e-mail.
