Boise Cascade wants to chip privately owned forests throughout the lakes region in northern Patagonia. Much of this forested area is already degraded, with only a fraction of the original forest intact. Demand will inevitably push harvesting deep into untrammeled and unprotected wildlands. If Boise Cascade succeeds in this venture, Chile's native forests and the life and communities that depend on them are in grave danger. Chile is the world's third largest exporter of woodchips, after Canada and the United States, yet wood chipping makes up less than one percent of Chile's Gross Domestic Product.
Tourism is worth seven times more than wood chipping to Chile's economy.
The Cascada-Chile project, already questionable environmentally, is a very shaky economic venture as well. The native forests of Chile are a local and global treasure that deserve better than extractive industrial exploitation. Boise Cascade plans to build, in the middle of this natural wonder, a super-chip mill that might be the largest of its kind on the planet. Defend the native ecosystems of the Americas and show solidarity with the people of Chile who are resisting this project. The Gondwana Forest Sanctuary Campaign is bringing global attention to the biodiversity of the southern cone.