Abstract

Sclerophyllous forests are extremely sensitive to global warming, and the sclerophyllous forest in the possession of small forest landowners (SFLs) in the Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region in Chile is degraded in spite of their high ecological value. Due to the total lack of forest management, the yield obtained from native forests is very low, with highly intervened forests and intense soil erosion. The main contribution of this article is to present, for the first time, a study on the characterization and problems of 211 small forest landowners in this region of Chile. After interviewing the landowners, multivariate analysis techniques were applied to the results of the survey, which enabled four types of SFL to be identified. Differences were found in regard to the surface area of their properties and the products extracted, among others. However, they all had a similar social profile, low education level and little training in forest management, very advanced ages, a lack of initiative to create forest communities, and lack of basic services due to their isolation. The characterization of the SFLs allowed proposals to be designed for future sustainable forest management activities to help mitigate the continuous deterioration of the native forest and obtain products in a sustainable way and with greater yields, considering current legal aspects, access to subsidies, and specific forest training plans for each type of SFL.