TY - CHAP

T1 - Exploring Traps in Forest and Marine Socio-Ecological Systems of Southern and Austral Chile

AU - Nahuelhual, Laura

AU - Saavedra, Gonzalo

AU - Jullian, Cristobal

AU - Mellado, María Amalia

AU - Benra, Felipe

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. All rights reserved.

PY - 2019/10/31

Y1 - 2019/10/31

N2 - Traps in social-ecological systems depict situations where human actors and institutions interact with ecological dynamics and unintentionally steer development into vulnerable paths difficult to reverse. We use the social-ecological trap (SET) metaphor and path-dependence analysis to describe the emerge of trap situations in two contrasting cases: (1) Panguipulli municipality, representative of the significant land inequalities that dominate the rural landscape of southern Chile, and (2) southern king crab artisan fishery (Lithodes santolla) of the Magellan region, a semiopen access fishery of high economic value, where illegal extractions are a pressing problem. In Panguipulli, the system is caught in a “trilogy of inequalities” (land, forest, and ecosystem services) that together conform an inequality trap. Government policies surrounding land and forest tenure since the imposition of colonial rule and the modern State have interacted with other factors to concentrate economic power in large landowners, marginalize small peasants, and weaken customary management institutions. In the Magellan case, the trap could be erroneously confounded since there are no apparent human losers. As 3 years of interviews and participant observations reveal, the apparent absence of a trap rests on the confidence that “there are still resources for all” and that illegal fishing is not pressing the size of the stock.

AB - Traps in social-ecological systems depict situations where human actors and institutions interact with ecological dynamics and unintentionally steer development into vulnerable paths difficult to reverse. We use the social-ecological trap (SET) metaphor and path-dependence analysis to describe the emerge of trap situations in two contrasting cases: (1) Panguipulli municipality, representative of the significant land inequalities that dominate the rural landscape of southern Chile, and (2) southern king crab artisan fishery (Lithodes santolla) of the Magellan region, a semiopen access fishery of high economic value, where illegal extractions are a pressing problem. In Panguipulli, the system is caught in a “trilogy of inequalities” (land, forest, and ecosystem services) that together conform an inequality trap. Government policies surrounding land and forest tenure since the imposition of colonial rule and the modern State have interacted with other factors to concentrate economic power in large landowners, marginalize small peasants, and weaken customary management institutions. In the Magellan case, the trap could be erroneously confounded since there are no apparent human losers. As 3 years of interviews and participant observations reveal, the apparent absence of a trap rests on the confidence that “there are still resources for all” and that illegal fishing is not pressing the size of the stock.

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Social-ecological systems

KW - Latin America

KW - Complexity

KW - Chile

KW - Social-ecological traps

KW - Forests

KW - King crabs

KW - Sustainability Science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088909109&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/834719a9-ae9f-361b-82a0-24cdd848cb76/

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-28452-7_18

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-28452-7_18

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-3-030-28451-0

SP - 323

EP - 345

BT - Social-ecological Systems of Latin America: Complexities and Challenges

A2 - Delgado, Luisa E.

A2 - Marín, Víctor H.

PB - Springer Schweiz

CY - Cham

ER -