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Accepted Paper:
Fitzroya lamento: Anthropocene forests in southern Chile?
Pedro Pablo Achondo Moya
(University of Chile)
The aim is to problematize the view of the Alerce (Fitzroya Cupressoides) forests within the framework of the Anthropocene. Where is the Anthropocene in the Alerzales mountain ranges? What are the affective ecologies that these millenary forests express and link with humans in these wounded times?
Paper long abstract:
The alerce (larch) forests, located in southern Chile and part of Argentina, are characterized by their longevity and ecological properties; in addition to possessing a highly valued wood in the construction of houses and churches in the regions surrounding the forests in Chile. Due to its exploitation by the timber industry for more than a century, since 1976 the tree species Fitzroya Cupressoides has been protected and its logging prohibited.
This article seeks to problematize the human-forest relationship from the decolonial gaze and the practices and experiences of those who inhabit the alerzales. From posthuman geographies and vegetal thought, we ask about the idea and presence of the Anthropocene in the mountain ranges inhabited by the alerce trees. The forests protected as reserves and conservation areas allow, from an ethnographic point of view, to be explored and territorially re-recognized. The affective ecologies that emerge from there tell us about other relationships, new histories and other territories. We seek to verify these other ways of inhabiting and establishing links and alliances between humans and the larch forest. Where is the Anthropocene in the larch forests? What are the affective ecologies that these millenary forests express and link with humans in these wounded times? What lament do the Fitzroya trees express in the highlands of the southern mountain ranges? What territories emerge by walking the forest and allowing themselves to be transformed by them?