Plate 5-B. Eucalyptus grown in the Lota plantations. Natural Forest Land Lands covered with natural timber forest, or capable of growing such a forest and not now in other use, total 7.1 million hectares as follows: Seventy-six percent of the total natural forest land is covered with, or is capable of growing, stands of commercially valuable and loggable sawtimber; 24 percent consists of rocky non-commercial areas (type 9). Such areas occur within the range of commercial timber, and support trees of sawtimber size and quality--scattered or in small groups, but are too rocky, too steep, or too exposed to produce commercial timber stands. No timber volumes, either board-foot or cubic, were assigned to them. Eighty percent of the commercial natural forest land is covered with virgin sawtimber, 9 percent supports partially-cut or second-growth stands, and 11 percent is deforested as result of fire or a combination of fire and cutting. The virgin forest is 93 percent hardwood, 7 percent conifer, by area. Natural second-growth and partially-cut forest are also almost entirely hardwood. Forest Plantations The 143.5 thousand hectares of planted forests in Chile cover an area equivalent to 2.6 percent of the natural commercial forest land. Table 2 shows the area of existing forest plantations by species, broad age-class and province group. Insignis Pine plantations form 58 percent of the total, by area; 31 percent are Eucalyptus; 4 percent are Alamo; and the remaining 7 percent consist of other species, including Cipres and Acacia. Twenty-three percent, by area, of the plantations have reached exploitable size, which roughly corresponds to a minimum age of 7 years for Alamo, 10 to 15 years for Eucalyptus, and 20 years for Insignis Pine and most other species. (See figure 4 and plate 5.) Of total plantation area, 28 percent is found in Province Group 2 (Coquimbo to Talca), 47 percent in Province Group 3 (Linares, Maule, Nuble, Bio-Bio and Concepcion), and 24 percent in Province Group 4 (Arauco and Malleco to and including Llanquihue). The remaining 1 percent is virtually all in the three northern provinces, Tarapaca to Ata cama. These plantation areas were derived from the official statistics of the Ministerio de Agricultura de Chile, which were modified to form with information from certain plantation owners and Corporacion de Fomento foresters. TIMBER VOLUMES All of the volume figures in this inventory are estimates of net volume of sound wood. Deductions for defect have already been made, and in the case of sawtimber volumes additional deductions to allow for loss due to breakage in logging also have been made. Earlier accounts characterize the forests of Chile as extremely defective, stating that decay in the virgin forest ranged from 40 to 80 percent of the total gross volume. This is incorrect. The amount of defect in typical stands was found to range from 20 to 30 percent, which is comparable to that in many mature and over-mature virgin forests elsewhere in the world. few Chilean stands defect was found to total 50 percent of gross volume; in numerous instances it amounted to less than 20 percent. In a Cubic volumes are shown for trees 5.1 inches and larger in diameter at breast height in the natural forest, for trees 1.1 inches and larger in plantation and woodland zone. Board-foot volume is shown for trees 11.1 inches and larger in diameter of quality suitable for manufacture into sawtimber. Cubic volume figures show total solid sound wood contents of trees, exclusive of stump. In contrast, board foot figures show the volume of lumber that could be sawn from trees of sawtimber size and quality, the board-foot unit having net lumber content equivalent to a solid one-foot square, one inch thick. Cubic Volume The volume of sound wood in Chilean forests and woodlands totals 65,095 million cubic feet. Province Group 4 (Arauco and Malleco to and including Llanquihue) contains 46 percent of this total, and Province Group 5 (Chiloe and Aysen) 38 percent. (See table 3 and figure 5.) Of the 65,095 million total, 62,652 million or slightly more than 96 percent occurs in the natural forest zone; slightly less than 3 percent occurs in the dry-zone woodlands of the central and northern portion, and only 1 percent is found in planted forests. In point of total cubic volume in the natural forest the leading species are Coigue with 27 percent of the total; Tepa, 20 percent; Luma and similar species combined, 15 percent. Next come Tineo and Ulmo, with 6.6 and 6.5 percent respectively, and Canelo with 4.9 percent. (See figure 6.) Complete detail by species and province group is given in table 3. It should be noted here that the volume shown as "Coigue " includes Palo Trevo, Lenga, Roble de Chiloe, and Roble de Magallanes. "Luma" includes Tepu, Temu, and Radal. Manio includes all the manios and Lleuque. These groupings of species having some qualities in common are made primarily for purposes of simplification. The minor species grouped with Coigue represent only a very small percentage of the group total in all provinces except Magallanes, where Roble de Magallanes constitutes a material percentage. The bulk of the wood volume in Chile, 80.9 percent of it, Occurs in stands of sawtimber size; only 1.5 percent is found in stands of smaller timber, and 17.6 percent is in natural woodland. Detail of cubic volume distribution by zone, species, type of stand, and type and portion of tree is given in table 4 and figure 7. Of the 52,668 million cubic feet of wood in stands of sawtimber size, only 0.7 percent is found in forest plantations; the remainder is in natural forest. Volume of sound wood suitable for sawlogs totals 38,404 million cubic feet, or 73 percent of the total in sawtimber stands; 15 percent of the cubic volume in such stands is found in the tops of trees above the usual limits of sawlog utilization. Rough trees and logs, sound but unsuitable for sawlogs, comprise 5 percent of the cubic volume in sawtimber stands, and the wood in understory trees, those less than 11.1 inches in diameter at breast height, is 7 percent. The proportion of sound wood volume suitable for sawlogs varies greatly between the different species, depending on tree size and quality. For example, most of the Araucaria volume is contained in trees of good size and comparatively good quality with short tops; 90 percent of the total cubic volume for this species is suitable for manufacture into lumber and timbers. In contrast, Luma, and similar species, are characterized by small sizes, poor form, and comparatively big tops; less than 5 percent of the total solid wood in this species group is suitable for sawing. Of the 1,002 million cubic feet in commercial forests less than sawtimber size, i.e., the second-growth stands, 71 percent is in stands that were established by natural means of regeneration and 29 percent is in stands that were planted. The substantial volume of 11,425 million cubic feet found in natural woodland occurs principally in the Luma-Tepu thickets within the natural forest zone in the south of Chile; 15 percent of the total, or 1,761 million cubic feet, occurs in the Espino-Boldo woodland, principally in the central portion. Sawtimber Volume A total of 174,921 million board feet of lumber could be sawn out of the 38,404 million cubic feet of sound wood in sawlogs found in |