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Future

Chile's Reforestation Efforts Paying Off

Chile, you're doint it right
Chile, you're doint it right

SANTIAGO – Between reforestation and afforestation, 100,000 hectares are planted in Chile on average every year – 160 million new trees.

Reforestation is the restocking of forests that have been depleted, while afforestation is the establishment of new forests. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Chile and Uruguay are the only South American countries where woodland has increased.

According to Fernando Raga, the president of the Chilean Wood Corporation (CORMA), these figures show the importance of planting forests for Chile – a situation that applies to the rest of the world. Among the four billion hectares of forests in the world, only 7% are planted forests, but they provide two thirds of the current wood production, alleviating the pressure on native woodland.

Raga says that forest plantation in Chile has doubled in nearly 30 years, increasing from 1,1 million hectares in 1984 to 2,4 million hectares in 2012.

“Of that total, 87% is situated on grounds with different levels of erosion, so it has generated real economic, social and environmental benefits – including the creation of jobs in the sector, which have increased from 65,000 to 122,000 in that period,” explains Raga.

The size of native woodland has been relatively stable since the National Cadastre of Native Vegetation Resources of Chile (1994-1997) landmark assessment on land resources.

At that time native woodland represented 13,4 million hectares, while the last update indicates that it reached 13,6 million hectares in 2011 – a net gain of 200,000 hectares in 15 years.

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Future

Life On "Mars": With The Teams Simulating Space Missions Under A Dome

A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.

Photo of a person in a space suit walking toward the ​Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

At the Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

Sarah Scoles

In November 2022, Tara Sweeney’s plane landed on Thwaites Glacier, a 74,000-square-mile mass of frozen water in West Antarctica. She arrived with an international research team to study the glacier’s geology and ice fabric, and how its ice melt might contribute to sea level rise. But while near Earth’s southernmost point, Sweeney kept thinking about the moon.

“It felt every bit of what I think it will feel like being a space explorer,” said Sweeney, a former Air Force officer who’s now working on a doctorate in lunar geology at the University of Texas at El Paso. “You have all of these resources, and you get to be the one to go out and do the exploring and do the science. And that was really spectacular.”

That similarity is why space scientists study the physiology and psychology of people living in Antarctic and other remote outposts: For around 25 years, people have played out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another world. Polar explorers are, in a way, analogous to astronauts who land on alien planets. And while Sweeney wasn’t technically on an “analog astronaut” mission — her primary objective being the geological exploration of Earth — her days played out much the same as a space explorer’s might.

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