THE 5 MOST IMPORTANT NATURAL RESOURCES OF CHILE - ENVIRONMENT - 2024

The natural resources of Chile are mainly based on mining and forest reserves, agriculture, groundwater use and fisheries. Chile is surrounded by deserts to the north, by ice in the south, by the mountains of the Andes to the east and by the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Its surface covers 4,200 km, where we can find a great diversity of climates: desert (Atacama), subtropical (Easter Island) and polar (Antarctica). Chile is divided into 5 natural regions: a) The Big North b) the Small North C) Central Chile d) South zone and e) Southern zone (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Chile's location within South America (Letelier et al. 2003).

The Norte Grande region is a very arid area where the Atacama desert is found. In the Norte Chico region, the climate is of the steppe type, here we can find large valleys with very good fertility for agriculture.

The central zone includes the metropolitan region and the capital of Chile, being the most urbanized area in the country. In it, the climate is Mediterranean with mesomorphic scrub vegetation.

In the southern zone the climate is more humid, being able to find areas of forests, jungles and extensive lakes. In this area we find native forests, composed of araucaria, oak (Nothofagus oblique), coihue (Nothofagus dombeyi) and raulí (Nothofagus alpine). These represent a source of food and medicinal plants for the Mapuche communities (Azócar et al. 2005, Herrmann, 2005).

Finally, in the southern zone we can find cold steppe, tundra, high altitude glacier and polar climates. The latter is found in the Chilean Antarctic territory.

Main natural resources of Chile

The Chilean economy is based on the primary sector, mining, agriculture, fisheries and forestry resources, so it strongly depends on factors such as water and ecosystem resources.

Mining

Chuquicamata Mine, Calama, Chile. Diego Delso, from Wikimedia Commons

Mining is the first economic sector. It has played a very important role in the development of Chile at the end of the last century (Figures 2 and 3) and currently contributes greatly to the country's GDP.

In 2012, 80% of Chile's exports derived from natural resources corresponded to copper mining (Sturla & Illanes, 2014). This activity is located mainly in the northern and central areas, which are the driest areas of the country.

This represents a great problem for water resources, because in addition to being an extractive water activity, it is also highly polluting due to the use of chemical products in its processes, affecting other sectors such as agriculture and domestic use (Sturla & Illanes, 2014).

Figure 2. Annual monetary contribution of mining in Chile, compared to other sectors (Lagos, 1997)

Figure 3. Annual monetary contribution of copper mining compared to other mining activities (Lagos, 1997)

In the central zone, changes in land use have favored urban growth since 1975 (Figure 4).

farming

There has been an increase in the urban area and a decrease in agricultural activity due to problems of water scarcity, soil erosion and the richness and abundance of birds of prey (Pavez et al. 2010).

Figure 4. Landscape dynamics in the Santiago foothills between 1975 and 2003. A = 1975, B = 1989, C = 2003. (Pavez et al. 2010)

Fauna

Regarding the animal fauna, the hunting of foxes, chingues, guanacos and pumas stands out, mainly for the sale of their skins. In turn, the introduction of exotic species produced serious imbalances in Chilean ecosystems.

Currently, hunting in Chile is regulated for species such as guanaco and ñandú, which are being bred in captivity. In addition to these, exotic species were introduced for this purpose such as red deer, wild boar, ostrich, and emu.

In Chile there are a total of 56 species of amphibians, of which 34 are endemic (Ortiz and Díaz, 2006).

Forest resources

The forest industry is of great importance to the Chilean economy. The industry's contribution to the national GDP grew by almost 30% during the 1998-2006 period.

This industry is located in the center and south of Chile. The main countries to which it is exported are the United States, China, Mexico and Japan, with chips, pulp and paper, sawn wood, boards, veneers and posts being the products with the most output (Felzensztein and Gimmon, 2008).

Chile has protected areas for biodiversity. Approximately 20% of the continental and insular national territory is protected.

However, more than 80% of the protected land area is located in Aysén and Magallanes, while in Maule, Coquimbo and the Santiago Metropolitan Region we only find less than 1% of protected areas (Sierralta et al. 2011).

Groundwater

The Chilean economy based on exports of copper, fruit, wood, salmon and wine has intensified the use of water, mainly in the northern and central parts, areas precisely where the availability of water is limited. This is due to the lowering of the groundwater level and the low availability of water, so characteristic of arid climates.

The average groundwater recharge reaches approximately 55 m3 / s. If we compare this value with the 88 m3 / s of effective use of groundwater in 2003, we realize that there is a deficit of this resource.

The main use that is given to groundwater is in agriculture, followed by local consumption and industry (Sturla & Illanes, 2014).

Fishing industry

Fishing boats in Coquimbo. By Edu3k, from Wikimedia Commons

Chile has a wide variety of mollusks. To date, 779 species of the gastropoda class and 650 species of the cephalopoda class have been quantified, many of them extremely important for the fishing sector (Letelier et al. 2003).

More than 60 species of shellfish and algae are regularly exploited by the small-scale fishing sector and in external markets. The species that are commercialized are the tolina, (Concholepas concholepas), the sea urchin (Loxechinus albus), the black crab (Homalaspis plana) and some species of limpet (Fissurella maximum, Fissurella latimarginata, Fissurella cumingi) (Castilla and Fernandez, 1998), To these species is added the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas), an exotic mollusk of great economic interest that was introduced in 1978 (Moller et al. 2001).

Like other coastal sectors, fishing has led to a drastic decrease in local hydrobiological resources, resulting in the impoverishment of the communities that depend on these resources (Schurman, 1996).

Through the last sixty years, records have been kept of the total landing of fish, molluscs, crustaceans, algae and others, observing a constant increase in exploitation.

This reached 8 million tons in 1994, to later drop to 4 million tons in recent years. However, the artisanal fishing and aquaculture subsectors have grown gradually, reaching a contribution similar to that of the industrial subsector. (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Total fish landings by subsector from 1969 to 2012 (Cox and Bravo, 2014).

The aquaculture or fish farming industry is export oriented, selling more than 90% of the production abroad. Its main export markets are the United States (37%), Japan (30%) and the European Union (14%), (Felzensztein and Gimmon. 2008).

The main species of farmed fish is the Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), followed by the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and the Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), (Cox and Bravo, 2014).

Bibliography

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2. Castilla Juan C, Fernandez Miriam. (1998) Small-Scale Benthic Fisheries In Chile: On Co-Management And Sustainable Use Of Benthic Invertebrates. Ecological Applications, Ecological Society of America. Supplement, 1998, pp. S124-S132.
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