Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 78 (1): 125-141, 2005
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Biodiversity conservation in Chile, legally enough? The need for mapping the law before
deciding
About 99.8 % of the land sustaining biodiversity in Chile is rural and regulated by
legislation, which has been qualified as disperse, too specific or inorganic. Even though modern legislation like (Chilean Law of
Environmental Basis) tends to be more holistic in nature, serious imperfections connected with applicability, interpretation and, mainly
enforcement still prevails. We argue here that any search for, or application of, ecological models as a support for conservation biology
could be strongly complemented by a measurement of the land surface (amount and spatial distribution) effectively affected by
present environmental protection legislation. Our study attempts to answer to the question of how much land will be effectively under
protection if law is enforced. To answer this question we designed and tested a methodology to express, in cartographic form, legal
dispositions related with Chilean native forest protection. We analyzed its complexity and the effects of its application. We show that it
is enough to enforce the law to get to assure a minimum of land, which in addition of increasing the currently protected are also
increases connectivity while changing fragmentation patterns. Our SIG based methodology has advantages in terms of its application
to environmental monitoring, planning and control of social initiatives.
Key words:
biodiversity, native
forest, environmental legislation, Chile
