In 1998, Chiappe helped organize a gathering of representatives from Argentina, Chile, Australia and New Zealand. They met in Chile to plan a campaign for the Gondwana Forest Sanctuary. This was followed by a planning meeting in New Zealand in November 2000, and another meeting in Patagonia in April last year that was attended by 22 organizations from Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Great Britain, the United States.
One of the first goals of the Gondwana Forest Sanctuary Campaign is to protect the remaining native forests on the island of Tierra del Fuego in
both Chile and Argentina. These are the southernmost forests on Earth, and a portion of these forests is recognized as Magellanic Rainforest.
These sub-antarctic forests are threatened by the $200 million Rio Condor project of U.S.-based Savia International, Ltd. (an affiliate of Trillium Corporation) to log 1,400 square miles of 10,000-year-old forest, approximately half of which is virgin timber.
The trees are 85 percent lenga
(above, nothofagus pumilio also known as Magallanes oak), and 15 percent coigue (southern beech, nothofagus betuliodes). Lenga
trees can reach up to 120 feet in height and three feet in diameter on the best sites. They survive from 350 to 500 years, and reach adult life and fertility after 120 years. Any shorter time between harvests is not sustainable because the first new trees have to reach the adult stage just when the last of the ancient ones are being cut. Lenga trees' cherry-colored wood is naturally resistant to decay, so it is considered high enough quality for exterior and interior use. Savia wants to export lenga as wood chips, and to sell it in the U.S. as a specialty wood that can substitute for scarce and endangered black cherry lumber.
Tierra del Fuego's forests can withstand sub-antarctic winds of up to 90 miles per hour because the tree trunks and tops grow close together, sometimes intertwining. They stand on topsoil that is only 1 to 4 inches thick, with more than half of its nutrients located in standing and fallen trees rather than in the ground.
"These wooded ecosystems are extremely fragile," said Adriana Hoffmann, a Chilean environmentalist. "They are very new systems. The Ice Age
ended about 7 to 8,000 years ago in this area, and only if one really examines those forests is it possible to see how fragile they are,
and how thin the soil really is. It's like the first population; the first settlement of species of trees after the glaciers melted. The
soil is barely a few centimeters thick, which indicates that it is a very new system; one for which there is no historical pattern of recycling."
In Australia, the island state of Tasmania hosts the largest extent of Gondwannic forests and Australia's largest intact temperate rainforest, known as the Tarkine. Unfortunately, this incredibly diverse area is slated for massive
woodchipping, sawlog and mining operations. Australia also has one of the highest rates of deforestation on Earth, nearly all for woodchip exports. More than five million tons of wood chips are exported annually from Tasmania – 60 percent of Australia's total.
There are also significant remnants of Gondwannic forests in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland in mainland Australia. These forests are being destroyed by corporations such as John Hancock and Nippon Paper in places like the Otway and Strezlecki Ranges and East Gippsland in Victoria.
More than 80 percent of New Zealand's forest cover has been removed, and much of these ancient forests have already been converted to monocultural tree farms. Fortunately, logging of native forests has nearly come to an end in New Zealand, thanks to years of dedicated forest defense. Gondwannic forests still grow extensively on New Zealand's South Island and in small portions of the North Island, and the
unique and diverse remaining native forests may soon get a complete reprieve.
