Browsing by Author "Lara, Antonio"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Diversifying Chile's climate action away from industrial plantations
    (2021) Hoyos-Santillan, Jorge; Miranda, Alejandro; Lara, Antonio; Sepulveda-Jauregui, Armando; Zamorano-Elgueta, Carlos; Gomez-Gonzalez, Susana; Vasquez-Lavin, Felipe; Garreaud, Rene D.; Rojas, Maisa
    As president of the Climate Change Conference of the Parties, Chile has advocated for developing ambitious commitments to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050. However, Chile's motivations and ambitious push to reach carbon-neutrality are complicated by a backdrop of severe drought, climate change impacts (i.e., wildfires, tree mortality), and the use of industrial plantations as a mitigation strategy. This has become more evident as widespread and severe wildfires have impacted large areas of industrial plantations, transforming the land-use, land-use change, and forestry sector from a carbon sink to a net carbon source. Consequently, Chile must diversify its climate actions to achieve carbon-neutrality. Nature-based solutions, including wetlands-peatlands and oceans, represent alternative climate actions that can be implemented to tackle greenhouse gas emissions at a national level. Diversification, however, must guarantee Chile's long-term carbon sequestration capacity without compromising the ecological functionality of biodiverse treeless habitats and native forest ecosystems.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Out of sight, not out of mind: The effect of access to conservation sites on the willingness to pay for protecting endangered species
    (2024) Henriquez, Makarena; Vasquez-Lavin, Felipe; Barrientos, Manuel; Oliva, Roberto D. Ponce; Lara, Antonio; Flores-Benner, Gabriela; Riquelme, Carlos
    According to the latest global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services, nature and biodiversity have experienced a global decline, making the development of conservation policies urgent. Herein, we used a contingent valuation survey to estimate the economic value of a reintroduction program for the huemul ( Hip- pocamelus bisulcus ), an endangered charismatic species in Chile. Our novel approach exploits changes in the access to the site to disentangle nonuse value from use value. We use parametric and nonparametric models to estimate the willingness to pay for the program. Our findings consistently indicate that the conservation of the huemul is valued more when tourist access is restricted, as opposed to allowing visitors access to reintroduction areas. We also analyze the sensitivity of this main finding to different cut-off points of a certainty scale, showing that the results are robust. We hypothesize that people are willing to pay a "premium" to keep the conservation site "out of sight" from tourist activities. This could also be related to the belief that a reintroduction program would be more effective if access was not allowed. A cost -benefit analysis using the most conservative assumptions suggests that social benefit significantly outperforms cost.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Progress in creating a joint research agenda that allows networked long-term socio-ecological research in southern South America: Addressing crucial technological and human capacity gaps limiting its application in Chile and Argentina
    (WILEY, 2012) Anderson, Christopher B.; Celis Diez, Juan L.; Bond, Barbara J.; Martinez Pastur, Guillermo; Little, Christian; Armesto, Juan J.; Ghersa, Claudio; Austin, Amy; Schlichter, Tomas; Lara, Antonio; Carmona, Martin; Chaneton, Enrique J.; Gutierrez, Julio R.; Rozzi, Ricardo; Vanderbilt, Kristin; Oyarce, Guillermo; Fernandez, Roberto J.
    Since 1980, more than 40 countries have implemented long-term ecological research (LTER) programs, which have shown their power to affect advances in basic science to understand the natural world at meaningful temporal and spatial scales and also help link research with socially relevant outcomes. Recently, a disciplinary paradigmatic shift has integrated the human dimensions of ecosystems, leading to a long-term socio-ecological research (LTSER) framework to address the world's current environmental challenges. A global gap in LTER/LTSER only exists in the latitudinal range of 40-60 degrees S, corresponding to Argentina and Chile's temperate/sub-Antarctic biome. A team of Chilean, Argentine and US researchers has participated in an ongoing dialogue to define not only conceptual, but also practical barriers limiting LTER/LTSER in southern South America. We have found a number of existing long-term research sites and platforms throughout the region, but at the same time it has been concluded an agenda is needed to create and implement further training courses for students, postdoctoral fellows and young scientists, particularly in the areas of data and information management systems. Since LTER/LTSER efforts in Chile and Argentina are incipient, instituting such courses now will enhance human and technical capacity of the natural science and resource community to improve the collection, storage, analysis and dissemination of information in emerging LTER/LTSER platforms. In turn, having this capacity, as well as the ongoing formalization of LTER/LTSER programs at national levels, will allow the enhancement of crucial collaborations and comparisons between long-term research programs within the region and between hemispheres and continents. For Spanish version of the entire article, see Online Supporting Information (Appendix S1). Resumen Desde 1980, mas de cuarenta paises han implementado programas de Investigacion Ecologica a Largo Plazo (LTER por sus siglas en ingles), los cuales han mostrado su capacidad para influir sobre los avances en las ciencias basicas que permiten entender el mundo natural en escalas temporales y espaciales significativas, y tambien ayudar a enfocar la investigacion hacia estudios socialmente relevantes. Recientemente, gracias a un cambio de paradigma en la disciplina, se integro tambien la dimension humana de los ecosistemas, llevandola a un marco conceptual de Investigacion Socio-Ecologica a Largo Plazo (LTSER por sus siglas en ingles) para enfrentar los desafios medio-ambientales del mundo actual. Existe un vacio global en LTER/LTSER en el rango latitudinal de 40-60 degrees S, correspondiente a los biomas templados/subantarticos de Argentina y Chile. Un equipo de investigadores chilenos, argentinos y estadounidenses ha trabajado por varios anos para definir cuales son la barreras que actualmente limitan la creacion de una Red de LTER/LTSER en el sur de Sudamerica, no solamente en terminos conceptuales, sino tambien a nivel practico. Existe un buen numero de sitios de investigacion a largo plazo en la region, pero tambien concluimos que es necesario crear e implementar mas cursos de capacitacion para estudiantes, investigadores post-doctorales y jovenes cientificos, particularmente en las areas de sistemas de manejo de datos e informacion.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The First Millennium-Age Araucaria Araucana in Patagonia
    (2017) Aguilera-Betti, Isabella; Muñoz, Ariel A.; Stahle, Daniel; Figueroa, Gino; Duarte, Fernando; González-Reyes, Álvaro; Christie, Duncan; Lara, Antonio; González, Mauro E.; Moreira Muñoz, Andrés; Sheppard, Paul R.; Sauchyn, David; Toledo-Guerrero, Isadora; Olea, Matías; Apaz, Pablo; Fernandez, Alfonso