NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE ON FOREST SCIENCE

In the previous chapter, table 3.5 delivered a notable result for the national level. It seems that the scientific discourse in Chile differs greatly from the global scientific discussion.

The number of articles that were found for the three selected topics amounted to a total of eight articles for the ten year time frame. Six articles dealt with the topic biodiversity;

only one article dealt with climate change and one with forest fires. These numbers do not allow deep quantitative analysis regarding the existence of national Center-Periphery structures, of collaboration patterns and as well of medialization of forest science (only in the case of biodiversity can this be examined).

The scientific discourse on forest science in Chile, reflected through the selected medium, was centered on topics dealing with the impact of environmental variables (other than fire) on determined species, silviculture, modeling and management, genetics amongst other forest related issues. However, this cannot be taken to mean that no scientific discussion on climate change or forest fires has taken place within this time frame.

Forest fires are an important topic in Chile, where for the time period 1994-2003 an average number of 6000 forest fires occurred throughout the country, affecting on

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average 52819 ha of forests (CONAF, 2008)⁵². The importance of this issue in the country is also reflected through the various policies and investments (for example regarding prevention) that both the government (through CONAF) and private enterprises have developed and carried out. As an example of such interests the government, through CONAF, invests every season approximately 7,5 million dollars on forest protection (including fire fighting and prevention); private enterprises on the other hand invest per season around 14 million dollars (CONAF⁵³), having created different cooperation associations to prevent and fight fires. Projects that count with the participation of the scientific community in order to deal with the dangers of forest fires are being constantly carried out in the country. The locally based project “Redes inalámbricas de sensores para la detección de incendios forestales y monitoreo de variables de estado de combustible para el recurso forestal de la Región de Valparaíso⁵⁴” for example, surged from a partnership between governmental actors, research organizations, and private enterprises.

This project proposes the use of technological tools (satellite images and wireless sensors) to constantly monitor variables that favor the occurrence and propagation of forest fires.

The scientific knowledge originated through this project was presented in different international scientific conferences as well as source of diploma theses.

Scientific articles published in national scientific peer-reviewed journals dealing with forest fires can also be found in journals associated with biology or geography, for example: “Revista Chilena de Historia Natural⁵⁵” or “Terra Australis⁵⁶”. However, and because of the scares numbers of articles dealing with this issue even in the non-forestry journals, the publishing in scientific journals seems not to have been a priority of the researchers focused on forest fires.

The Chilean scientific community recognizes the opportunities and challenges that climate change presents for the country. Projects such as “Bosques PROcarbono” of the Austral University have since 1999 actively been playing a role in the diffusion and capacity formation of forestry projects that may contribute to the mitigation of climate change⁵⁷. This particular project has produced scientific publications from its foundation which show that forest science has not been silent on this particular issue. They are however mostly presented in international conferences and in journals associated to wider audiences than those of forestry, for example natural resource or environmental journals.

The relationship between forest fires and climate change is an important and recognized one for Chile (INFOR, 2005) considering that when perturbations such as forest fires occur this has an influence on CO2 emission (seen as important because of the interest Chile, and the private enterprises, have on being incorporated in Clean Develop

54 “Wireless sensor networks for the detection of forest fires and monitoring of combustion state variables for the forest resource in the Valparaíso Region” (Own translation) www.gisincendiosforestales.cl (last seen 03.10.2008).

55 “Chilean Magazine of Natural History” (own translation) published by the Chilean Biology Society.

56 Published by the Geographical Military Institute of Chile (http://www.igm.cl/productos.asp?id=39 last seen 03.10.08).

57 http://www.uach.cl/procarbono/quienes_somos.html (last seen 20.09.2008).

Results and Discussion

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regularly published forestry scientific peer-review journal selected. This result shows that the scientific discourse on the national level is diverse, or in other words, not contained within the limits of forest journals.

For the issue of biodiversity, a low number of articles were found (six). This can be used to analyze the hypotheses regarding medialization, as these are based on the number of statements as the unit of analysis rather than on the number of articles (which are needed for examining Center-Periphery structures as well as collaboration patterns).

Even though few amounts of data could be gathered regarding the scientific discourse on a national level, some characteristics of the discourse can be inferred by the data gathered.

The climate change article (1997) was authored by one scientist, a Chilean economist with no recognizable affiliation institution, who wrote about sustainable development and the environment emphasizing the presence of a new global strategy to combat environmental problems such as climate change. He analyzes the global tendencies to fight climate change and other environmental problems contrasting them to how Chile arrives at decision that affect economic, environment, and social sectors and what consequences these global strategies have on the country. The article focuses both on the global level and national level, especially how the global processes and policies present challenges and opportunities for a country such as Chile (Serrano, 1997).

The forest fire article, appearing in the year 2000, focused on the effects of fires on the wood of Prosopis alba Griseb. and Prosopis nigra (Griseb.) Hieron, Mimosaceae which grows in Dry Chaco, Argentina (Bravo et al., 2001). The authors, in an experimental type of article, examined how fires damaged the wood of these species lowering their commercial value. The article was co-authored by three scientists all from the same research institution in Argentina. The collaboration that took place in this article was at the department level since all scientists involved belong to the same department of silviculture and forest management. The three authors were female affiliated to a forestry faculty.

For biodiversity, a total of 14 authors wrote the six articles that were analyzed. 13 of them were affiliated to Chilean institutions, while one was affiliated to a Peruvian institution.

More than half of the institutions, to which these scientists were affiliated, were forest research institutions, while the rest of the scientists were affiliated to natural sciences (six scientists). The disciplines that represented the natural sciences in these articles were ecology (four authors), entomology, and biology (each with represented through one author). Two authors belong to research institutions other than universities or colleges (twelve authors were affiliated to these institutions). No women were present as authors in the articles. All of the articles were either concerned with events happening on a national or local event in Chile. Regarding collaboration, all articles were written by more than one author. The average number of scientists per articles is 2,33 which is lower than the average number of authors for all issues on the global level. International collaboration in the biodiversity issues took place only in one of the six articles. Other collaboration was department collaboration (three articles), intra-organizational (one case) and inter-organizational (one case).

Through the analysis of the few articles that were gathered for the national discourse, some characteristics become apparent. There is participation of foreign scientists in the

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discourse both having to do with events within other countries (Argentina) as well as with events in Chile. The scientists that participate in forest science discourse are mainly forestry-related; however there is a presence of scientists specializing in ecology, entomology, and biology. The national discourse is characterized by experimental articles;

articles that deal with local problems and focus on practical knowledge.