All images and text © Kevin Moloney
Slowly-decaying stumps of beech trees logged in the early 20th century stand in Tierra del Fuego National Park in Argentina. International logging concerns hope to exploit Tierra del Fuego's seemingly endless old-growth forests, despite concerns over extremely slow regeneration in the sub-Antarctic region.
Ringed by a red band, a massive southern beech tree estimated to be some 400 years old marks part of a test plot owned by Lenga Patagonia, a division of the North American logging firm Trillium/Savia. The Bellingham, Wash., company hopes to exploit beech forests on over 300,000 hectares of Chilean and Argentine Tierra del Fuego.
Heavy equipment cuts a new access road into beech forest in Chilean Tierra del Fuego for Forestal Russfin, a local logging concession. Six local logging companies work on the Chilean side of the main island of Tierra del Fuego. Cutting up to 500 hectares per year, Russfin is the largest Chilean-owned company, according to Nelson Sanchez, a manager for the Gondwana Project, a forest management and mapping organization based in Punta Arenas, Chile. By contrast, the smallest harvest proposed by Trillium/Savia was 2,000 hectares per year.
"Me, I think there should be a lumber industry, but one for local consumption," Sanchez says. He feels large-scale logging is as damaging to the economy as it is to the forest. Large companies employ few local residents with little promise of long-term employment, he notes.
Stumps and debris line a public road through a tract of Trillium/Savia-owned land in Argentine Tierra del Fuego. Environmentalists fear heavy logging equipment moving through the forests could damage the thin soil, making the already shallow-rooted trees more susceptible to the region's high winds. "It's not going to matter whether you're selectively logging or taking a clear cut because your trees are all going to end up fallen over," notes biologist Matt Robson of Utah State University.
Rain-soaked logs await removal from the mud at a Trillium/Savia tract east of the Argentine town of Tolhuin.
All images and text © Kevin Moloney
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