A trilogy of inequalities: Land ownership, forest cover and ecosystem services distribution

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

A main challenge in sustainability sciences is to incorporate distributional aspects into ecosystem management and conservation. We explored and contrasted land ownership, forest cover and ecosystem services supply (ES) distribution in two municipalities of southern Chile (Panguipulli and Ancud), comprising 5,584 private properties. We relied on farm typologies data and ES indicators for forage, water regulation, and recreation opportunities. We calculated Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients to establish concentration ratios, and performed a hotspot analysis to determine ES supply distribution across properties. In both municipalities land ownership was highly concentrated: large properties (> 1,000–30,000 ha) represented less than 1% of total and comprised 74.5% and 20.7% of farm area, in Panguipulli and Ancud respectively. Forest cover distribution followed the same pattern (80.5% and 58.2%, respectively). As a result, water regulation and recreation opportunities concentrated in medium and large properties, whereas forage concentrated in small and medium ones. Gini coefficients ranged from relatively equal to relatively unequal for land ownership, forests cover and ES in both study areas. These inequalities reflect a historical land ownership concentration in private lands since colonial times, a structural condition that challenges both nature conservation and development and, therefore, it should be brought to the forefront of policy design in developing countries.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
ZeitschriftLand Use Policy
Jahrgang82
Seiten (von - bis)247-257
Anzahl der Seiten11
ISSN0264-8377
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.03.2019
Extern publiziertJa

Bibliographische Notiz

Funding Information:
This work was funded by CONICYT Chile through FONDECYT grant Nº 1151187 and FONDAP grant Nº 15150003 and by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research which is supported by the US National Foundation (Grant GEO- 1128040 ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd

DOI