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Smallholder Eucalyptus Plantation Forestry in Eastern Paraguay: A Case Study of
Silvicultural, Economic, and Environmental Context
Jake J. Grossman
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF FOREST RESOURCES
University of Washington
June 2012
Program Authorized to Offer Degree:
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
College of the Environment
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Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 4
Literature Review: Deforestation, Plantations, and Eucalyptus Forestry ....................... 5
Deforestation......................................................................................................................... 5
Plantation Forestry. .............................................................................................................. 8
Eucalyptus Plantations. ..................................................................................................... 10
Study Setting: Rural Eastern Paraguay ............................................................................... 17
Geography. .......................................................................................................................... 17
Demography. ...................................................................................................................... 18
Government. ....................................................................................................................... 18
Contemporary Political History. ...................................................................................... 19
Economics. .......................................................................................................................... 21
Environmental Policy. ....................................................................................................... 25
Extension. ............................................................................................................................ 27
Research Objectives ............................................................................................................... 30
Structure of the Report .......................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 2: Methods ................................................................................................................... 34
Study Design ........................................................................................................................... 34
Considerations of Study Quality ......................................................................................... 37
Construct Validity. ............................................................................................................. 37
Internal Validity. ................................................................................................................ 38
External Validity. ............................................................................................................... 38
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Reliability. ........................................................................................................................... 39
Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 39
Study Population. .............................................................................................................. 39
Interview Methodology. ................................................................................................... 42
Data Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 44
Interview Formatting......................................................................................................... 44
Data Mining and Descriptive Statistics. .......................................................................... 44
Inferential Statistics. ........................................................................................................... 45
Coding and Qualitative Analysis. ................................................................................... 45
Minimization of Bias. ......................................................................................................... 46
Chapter 3: Results and Analysis .............................................................................................. 47
Silvicultural Treatment.......................................................................................................... 47
Plantation Design. .............................................................................................................. 47
Site Preparation. ................................................................................................................. 49
Propagule type. .................................................................................................................. 49
Plantation Management. ................................................................................................... 51
Rotation and Harvesting. .................................................................................................. 52
Agroforestry. ....................................................................................................................... 52
Economic Context .................................................................................................................. 53
Household Economies. ...................................................................................................... 53
Motives for Adoption. ....................................................................................................... 54
Participation in a Committee or Development Project. ................................................ 54
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Extension Realized and Desired. ..................................................................................... 56
Propagule Procurement. ................................................................................................... 60
Plantation Costs and Income. ........................................................................................... 60
Plantation Products............................................................................................................ 62
Market Perceptions. ........................................................................................................... 62
Environmental Context ......................................................................................................... 64
Wood Use. ........................................................................................................................... 64
Other tree crops. ................................................................................................................. 68
Perceptions of Deforestation. ........................................................................................... 68
Perceptions of Euclayptus Nativeness. ........................................................................... 70
Perceptions of Eucalyptus Externalities. ........................................................................ 72
Chapter 4: Discussion ................................................................................................................ 75
Theory Testing ........................................................................................................................ 75
Do eucalyptus plantations spare natural forests? ......................................................... 75
Are eucalyptus plantations economical and practical? ................................................ 77
Are eucalyptus plantations environmentally beneficial? ............................................. 79
Critical Themes ....................................................................................................................... 81
Evaluating Silvicultural Practices. ................................................................................... 81
Role of Governments, Committees, NGOs, and Businesses. ....................................... 84
Environmental Awareness. .............................................................................................. 85
Chapter 5: Recommendations and Future Research ............................................................. 87
Recommendations for Extensionists ................................................................................... 87
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Tailor Advice to Client Needs. ......................................................................................... 87
Exploit Committees and Community Leaders. ............................................................. 88
Promote Agroforestry. ...................................................................................................... 88
Be Honest about Drawbacks. ........................................................................................... 89
Improve Access and Equity. ............................................................................................. 89
Future Research ...................................................................................................................... 90
Improved Sampling. .......................................................................................................... 90
Direct Observations. .......................................................................................................... 90
Longitudinal Studies. ........................................................................................................ 91
Causal Inference. ................................................................................................................ 91
Generalizability ...................................................................................................................... 91
Chapter 6: Literature Cited ....................................................................................................... 92
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 99
Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 100
A1. English Plantation Survey ........................................................................................... 100
A2. Spanish Plantation Survey ........................................................................................... 107
A3. Guaranì Plantation Survey .......................................................................................... 113
Tables ......................................................................................................................................... 119
Chapter 1: Introduction
This report characterizes the practice of eucalyptus (Eucalyptus L’Hér sp.)
plantation silviculture among smallholders in rural Eastern Paraguay and the economic
5 and environmental context of this form of forestry. As a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer
working in agroforestry extension in a rural village from 2009-2011, I lived in the
department of Caazapá, the heart of Paraguay’s burgeoning eucalyptus plantation
boom. I was motivated to learn more about smallholder eucalyptus plantations: the
silvicultural practices associated with their cultivation, the economic motives driving
their adoption, and the veracity of the claims treating them as either an environmental
scourge or blessing. My curiosity eventually produced the research detailed in this
report: a case study of 45 smallholder families in eight communities in Eastern
Paraguay who established eucalyptus plantations from 1991 to 2011. My mixed-
methods analysis of the data generated through interviews and field visits with these
families provides for a) sketches of “typical” plantations and the families who maintain
them, b) a description of the economic and institutional setting of smallholder
eucalyptus plantation forestry, and c) consideration of the environmental impacts of
eucalyptus silviculture as practiced and its role in structuring land-use among
plantation owners. This analysis also enables me to test prevailing theory regarding the
economic and environmental impacts of plantations against the Eastern Paraguayan
smallholder experience and offer recommendations for future work in extension and
rural development.
Literature Review: Deforestation, Plantations, and Eucalyptus Forestry
Deforestation. The world’s threatened forests are critical sources of ecosystem
services (sensu MEA, 2005): “the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems.” These
services take the form of “provisioning services” (e.g. wood, comestibles), “regulating
services” (e.g. climate amelioration, water quality improvement), spiritually and
aesthetically essential “cultural services,” and ecological “supporting services” (e.g. the
formation of new soil). Forests provide ecosystem services of each class, although their
role is usually underappreciated (Vihervaara et al., 2012) even as it is increasingly
compromised by deforestation (Ditt et al., 2010).
6 The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) 2010 Global
Forest Resources Assessment suggests that global loss of forest land cover proceeds at
an unsustainable but decreasing rate (FAO, 2011). Whereas the 1990-2000 rate of global
forest loss averaged 8.3 million hectares per year (.20%), the 2000-2010 rate had dropped
to 5.3 million hectare annually – just .13% of the estimated 4 billion hectares of forested
land worldwide. However, these aggregate figures mask a reality of much higher rates
of deforestation in the tropics and subtropics offset by low deforestation rates and
considerable afforestation in the temperate zones (Siry et al., 2005; FAO, 2011). South
America’s 2000-2010 deforestation rate of .45% was three times the world average,
despite net rates of afforestation in Uruguay and Chile (FAO, 2011).
Relative to the rest of South America and to the wider world, Paraguay has long
experienced some of the highest national rates of deforestation, peaking in 1989-1990
with estimated rates of loss ranging from 200,000 to 1 million hectares a year (JICA,
2002; Cartes, 2003) or between .9% and 1.64% annually (Hansen and DeFries, 2004;
FAO, 2011). The most recent FAO (2011) estimates put remaining forest coverage in
Paraguay at 17,582,000 ha (44% of the country’s land area). Yet again, aggregate data
conceal a much more troubling reality: roughly 80% of this remnant forest is located in
Paraguay’s Occidental (Western) region, a sparsely inhabited and less agriculturally
productive zone encompassing roughly 60% of the country’s surface area but less than
5% of its population (Macedo and Cartes, 2003; FAO, 2010a). In distinction, Paraguay’s
Oriental (Eastern) region is home to the vast majority of the country’s population and
less than a quarter of its forest coverage, including the country’s entire remaining extent
of the endangered Interior Atlantic Forest ecoregion (“Atlantic Forest”) (Cartes, 2003).
According to 1997 estimates (Cartes, 2003), only 200,800 ha – much of it degraded – of
an original coverage of over 880,500 ha of the Atlantic Forest remained in Eastern
Paraguay. This highly diverse and productive landscape has certainly shrunk in the
intervening years as a result of intense pressure from a poor, rural, and rapidly growing
7 society (Macedo and Cartes, 2003). Remote measures of land-change in the region over
the last two decades, including satellite tracking of encroachment into Paraguayan
forest reserves (Wright et al., 2007), deforestation in Paraguay and Brazil (Hansen and
DeFries, 2004), and conversion of forested lands in adjacent Misiones, Argentina
(Iziquierdo et al., 2008) support this proposition.
As is the case across the tropical and subtropical world, deforestation in
Paraguay is driven by a variety of interacting factors. Of Geist and Lambin’s (2002)
three proximate and five underlying factors driving deforestation, all eight are at play
in structuring the country’s still-considerable annual deforestation rate of 1.0% (Table
1). While these factors jointly produce observed patterns of deforestation, most
commentators (JICA, 2002; Cartes, 2003; FAO, 2004) concur that the expansion of
agriculture in the form of peasant subsistence farming, large-scale, mechanized cash
crop plantations, and cattle pasture is the major driver of deforestation in Eastern
Paraguay.
These classes of agricultural expansion appear, superficially, to result from the
behavior of the rural poor as well as of wealthy farmers and ranchers. Yet following
Duraiappah (1998), I posit that smallholder clearing of forest for subsistence crop
production and harvest of fuelwood is itself not a prime driver of deforestation
compared to the broader economic and policy trends that impoverish rural farmers and
force them to liquidate forest resources on their smallholdings. The distribution of
wealth, including land holdings, in Paraguay is one of the most inequitable in the
world: smallholders control only a fraction of the country’s agricultural land and capital
(Quintana and Morse, 2005). Meanwhile, rural smallholders are increasingly excluded
from both the large-scale production of major cash crops, such as wheat and soy
(Macedo and Cartes, 2003), and from the country’s dominant and largely urban “service
sector” (sensu Mario et al., 2004). In order to generate income and meet subsistence
needs on finite and, due to population growth, increasingly subdivided, parcels,
8 farmers occasionally convert or degrade forest remnants to row crops or cattle pasture
(Hamilton and Bliss, 1998). Though this form of smallholder deforestation does threaten
Paraguay’s extant forests, its contribution is likely felt on a completely different scale
than the conversion of forest lands predicated on the ongoing agricultural expansion
and population migrations of the last century. These trends have largely been facilitated
by government policy and have primarily benefitted large landowner interests
(Weisskoff, 1992; Macedo and Cartes, 2003). Rampant corruption and ineffective
environmental policy-making and implementation have militated against responsible
management, much less conservation, of existing forest resources (JICA, 2002; Yanosky
and Cabrera, 2003; FAO, 2004; Quintanta and Morse, 2005; Wright et al., 2007). In this
milieu, smallholders increasingly deforest their own land (Hamilton and Bliss, 1998),
sell it to large farming or ranching interests who do so (Cartes, 2003), or seek out
economically sustainable alternatives to customary subsistence farming of annual crops
coupled with exploitation of remnant natural forest.
Plantation Forestry. Globally, landowners and governments have relied on
plantation1 forestry as one way of meeting subsistence and commercial demand for
wood products. The most recent FAO estimates put global plantation cover at 7.0%
(FAO 2010b). Paraguayan smallholders and commercial forest operations have
exceeded this rate of investment in plantation forestry over the last two decades, more
than doubling planted forest coverage to 48,000 ha since 1990 (FAO, 2010a; FAO,
2010b). If the products that plantations produce – industrial roundwood, sawnwood,
wood-based panels, pulp, paper and paperboard, fuelwood and charcoal, poles, and
1 I will follow Evans and Turnbull (2004) in their FAO-originated definition of “plantations” as “forest stands established by planting or/and seeding in the process of afforestation or reforestation. They are either:
Of introduced species (all planted stands), or Intensively managed stands of indigenous species, which meet all the following criteria: one or
two species two species at plantation, even age class, regular spacing.”
9 non-timber forest products – can be harvested from natural forests as well, why did the
global coverage of plantations increase 39 times over between 1965 and 2010 (Evans and
Turnbull, 2004; FAO, 2010b)?
Factors promoting plantation adoption across the globe include loss of or poor
access to natural forest, unique benefits of plantation forestry, and institutional
promotion. Plantations are primarily seen as alternatives to natural forest that has either
become scarce or inaccessible. Given historical and contemporary rates (FAO, 2010b) of
deforestation, it is unreasonable to expect that forested land will increase in non-
temperate regions any time in the near future. Remaining forests are under increasing
pressure to provide for domestic and commercial wood needs and they are very
frequently less competent to do so because they are inaccessible or have been poorly
managed (Evans and Turnbull, 2004). At the same time, local stakeholders and
international spectators often favor the protection of these forests and support the
adoption of plantations to meet wood needs, thereby saving natural forests from further
exploitation (Sedjo and Botkin, 1997; Sedjo, 2001). And plantations can, if managed
properly for the single objective of wood production, generate biomass more efficiently
in time and space, and more economically, than these natural forests (Lamprecht, 1989;
Sedjo, 2001; Siry et al., 2005). Beyond mere productivity, plantations also boast a variety
of other advantages in their own right (Table B). Growing global awareness of these
benefits has accelerated implementation of plantation forestry. Finally, for decades,
governments, NGOs, and international organizations have encouraged plantation
establishment through extension, subsidies, and favorable policy (Cossalter and Pye-
Smith, 2003; Evans and Turnbull, 2004).
The potential economic and environmental effects of this zeal for plantation
forestry have been widely discussed in the literature (Table 2), but this discourse has
not produced a clear consensus on the desirability of the current global tendency
toward plantation forestry. It appears that plantations may be beneficial or harmful to
10 local economies and ecologies depending on a variety of factors (Cossalter and Pye-
Smith, 2003; Brockerhoff et al., 2008).
Eucalyptus Plantations. To date, there has been little investigation of the impacts
of eucalyptus plantation forestry on the economies of smallholder households and rural
communities. Most research has focused on the economics of larger, commercialized
plantations. Many of the alleged social and economic impacts of eucalyptus silviculture
on rural peasants are similar to the impacts of plantation forestry more generally (as in
Table 2). Shiva and Bandyopadhyay (1987) claim that eucalyptus cultivation fails to
meet the fuelwood needs of subsistence growers because eucalyptus wood burns poorly
as firewood and is generally seen as too valuable to burn. Indeed, economic analyses of
commercial plantation forests in Paraguay and regional neighbors have established the
profitability of eucalyptus. In Cubbage et al.’s (2007) comparison of 21 classes of
plantations, differentiated by species and region, in North and South America, the top
three internal rates of return (IRRs) corresponded to eucalyptus plantations grown in
Brazil (22.7% and 22.9%) and Uruguay (21.9%). Likewise, the IRR of E. grandis W. Hill
ex Maiden grown in Argentina, at 13.8%, was the highest realized IRR noted for
Argentina. A subsequent analysis (Cubbage et al., 2010) that included 12-year rotations
of E. grandis and E. camaldulensis Dehnh. in Paraguay further supported the economic
profitability of South American eucalyptus plantations relative to their counterparts in
other regions. Among the plantation classes surveyed, Paraguayan eucalyptus
plantations emerge as a profitable, relatively accessible investment (Table 3). It is
important to note, however, that in these cases, study populations were selected as
“typical or representative forest management regimes with good sites and good
management” (Cubbage et al., 2007). As a result, the resulting economic analysis of
eucalyptus plantation forestry characterizes large commercial enterprises better than
smallholder stands. It is reasonable to treat Cubbage and colleagues’ (2007; 2010)
conclusions as extreme, optimal outcomes for small-scale plantation owners, and as
11 being suggestive of the economic potential of eucalyptus plantation forests if
smallholders manage them intensively for wood production.
Both globally and in South America, concern over the environmental impacts of
eucalyptus plantation forestry have undermined its popularity as a valuable investment
and source of fuelwood (Doughty, 2001; Couto and Dube, 2001; Evans and Turnbull,
2004; Kohli et al., 2006). In Paraguay and adjacent regions of Brazil and Argentina, “fast-
wood forestry” (sensu Cossalter and Pye-Smith, 2003), the generally monotypic, even-
aged, short-rotation cultivation of fast-growing exotics, has become the silvicultural
practice of choice among plantation owners. And the majority of plantations in the
region – 80% in Paraguay (C. Sosa, personal communication) and 55% in Brazil
(Brockerhoff et al., 2008) – are composed of eucalyptus. The genus also plays an
important role in plantation forestry in the adjacent department of Misiones, Argentina
(Izquierdo et al., 2008). This high prevalence of eucalyptus and growing public
perception of its putative environmental disadvantages have generated considerable
concern over the advisability of continued investment in eucalyptus plantations
regionally. Below, I briefly review the literature on the environmental impacts of
eucalyptus cultivation, focusing when possible on plantations located in sub-tropical
Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina and agroforestry and smallholder systems.
Soil Hydrology. Anecdotal claims (as in Doughty, 2000) that eucalyptus
cultivation dries out the edaphic environment and depletes groundwater have
stimulated extensive research designed to assess these effects. Unfortunately, there is no
easy answer to the questions of whether and how eucalyptus plantations change local
hydrology. In Australia, native eucalyptus root systems can penetrate 8-10 m below the
soil surface and produce wilting point conditions in surface soil up to 42 m away
(Robinson et al., 2006). Because of these extensive root systems and high rates of water
uptake and transpiration, eucalyptus species have the capacity to consume water at
greater rates and from a wider spatial area than crop plants and pasture, out-
12 performing these other forms of land-use in droughts and reducing yield of
neighboring agricultural systems (Doughty, 2000; Couto and Dube, 2001; Evans and
Turnbull, 2004). This effect is especially pronounced under dry conditions (Poore and
Fries, 1987).
However, eucalyptus plantations don’t remove and transpire “excessive”
quantities of water from the soil relative to other forms of forested land (Ceccon and
Ramos-Martinez, 1999). As Florence (1996) notes, the perception that eucalypts dry out
the soil largely stems from the ways in which the trees are cultivated: in exotic, often
dry environments; alongside crop species that can’t compete with eucalypts for soil
moisture; and in short rotations, which guarantee that the plantation is in a fast-
growing, water-consumptive state for most of its lifespan. Certainly, eucalyptus species
excel at abstracting water from the soil. But in environments where water is plentiful,
eucalypts will not compete with native vegetation and crops for water. As such,
eucalyptus’s “high water consumption…needs to be considered, in an integrated way,
with other economic, socio-economic and environmental factors” in order to avoid the
unintended consequences of soil desiccation in valuable agricultural lands (Calder,
2002).
Soil Quality. Claims that eucalyptus degrades soil when planted in exotic
environments (Doughty, 2000) and the empirical research addressing these claims
follow a similar trope to that discussed above regarding its effects on soil moisture. This
is to say that eucalyptus is not especially consumptive of soil nutrients or productive of
erosion per se, but degrades soil depending on how it is planted and managed (Ceccon
and Ramos-Martinez, 1999; Couto and Dube, 2001; Florence, 1996). Site preparation and
silvicultural treatments such as burning, harrowing, disking, removal of understory
vegetation and residuals, short rotations, and aggressive even-aged management can all
produce erosion, loss of soil nutrients, and impoverishment of the soil biota.
13 Yet eucalyptus plantations may, depending on management, improve a variety
of parameters of soil quality. In Brazil, conversion of fallow lands to eucalyptus reduced
the health of the soil microbial community as measured by microbial biomass,
respiration rates, etc. Yet by the second year following the establishment of the
plantations, the values of these parameters had already begun recovering, with some
approaching values similar to those of natural forest (Araujo et al., 2010). Similarly,
Nogueira et al. (2008) found that for some soil microbial qualities such as total organic
carbon and ammonification rates, Brazilian eucalyptus plantations were quite similar to
natural forest. In terms of molecular diversity and biomass, however, plantations more
closely resembled wheat fields and fallows. Both studies dealing with soil microbes
suggest that cultivation practices rather than species identity structure soil health in
eucalyptus plantations. Eucalyptus also appears to acquit itself in the matter of carbon
cycling, an important process both for the maintenance of soil organic matter for
agriculture and for the sequestration of greenhouse gases. Ditt and colleagues (2010)
report that eucalyptus plantations in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest sequester carbon
almost as effectively as native forests, but better than pasture or bare soil. Soil from
long-rotation eucalyptus plantations in Ethiopia did not differ from adjacent forest soils
in any parameters related to the major macronutrients (Alem et al., 2010). Indeed,
Laclau and colleagues (2010b) report, based on their study of eucalyptus plantations in
Brazil and the Congo, that nutrient depletion of plantation soils can be avoided easily
by keeping to longer rotations or fertilizing regularly when short-rotation plantations
are grown consecutively for many years. As was the case in my consideration of the
effects of eucalyptus on water quality, planning and avoidance of destructive
silvicultural practices can provide for eucalyptus plantation forestry that does not
degrade the soil.
Allelopathy. Most eucalyptus species are at least somewhat allelopathic, meaning
they release chemicals into their environment which inhibit the growth of nearby plants
14 (Kohli et al., 2006). Though allelopathic qualities vary within the genus and their
expression depends on the local ecological context, allelopathy in the major silvicultural
species has been sufficient to produce widespread concern that eucalyptus plantations
either completely or partially suppress the growth of a vegetative understory and of
adjacent or intercropped agricultural species (Rizvi et al., 1999; Kohli et al., 2006). There
is substantial documentation that eucalyptus species, including popular plantation
varieties E. grandis and E. camaldulensis, produce allelopathic compounds, often in the
form of root exudates and literfall decomposition (Couto and Dube, 2001; Rizvi et al.,
2009). Yet the impact of these exudates on crop species germination and early growth
suggests that allelopathic effects are not uniform across plantation settings. The effects
of litterfall- and root exudate-mediated allelopathy on several common Chinese
horticultural species were found to be strong but also highly concentration- and age-
dependent. Zhang and Fu (2010) conclude that, in conditions of high rain or low
stocking of eucalyptus, concentrations of allelopathic compounds may not be sufficient
to make intercropping infeasible. Root exudate allelopathy was also found to be highly
inhibitory of crop growth in plantations younger than four years old, with limited
effects thereafter. Zhang and colleagues (2010) theorize that plantation soils may
neutralize the compounds with time. Rizvi et al. (2009) offer a more comprehensive
review of recent research assessing specific allelopathic eucalyptus-crop species
interactions.
Investigations assessing the allelopathic effects of eucalyptus plantations on
native vegetation have provided guardedly optimistic conclusions. In the Brazilian
Atlantic Forest, investigators found native forest regeneration consistent with an
intermediate successional stage within a 25 year-old E. grandis plantation (da Silva
Junior et al., 1995). Individual eucalyptus in that plantation served as nurse plants and
shade sources, with no allelopathic effects noted. In distinction, Evaristo and colleagues’
15 (2011) study of a Corymbia Citriodora (Hook.) K.D. Hill & L.A.S. Johnson plantation2 in
the same ecoregion showed phytosociological properties unlike those expected of a
natural forest of similar age and structure. The authors offer allelopathy as a possible
explanatory mechanism. (They do also caution that it is important not to generalize
among eucalyptus species and the ecological context in which they are grown.) In
response to the concern that eucalyptus plantations may not only prevent natural forest
growth but also invade surrounding native ecosystems, Muller da Silva et al. (2011)
planted E. grandis and hybrid eucalytpus seeds in Brazilian forests adjacent to
plantations. Their experiment simulated natural conditions under which eucalypts in
the region might colonize neighboring forest fragments. Though germination of the
seeds did occur, an unsuitable microclimate, high rates of herbivory, and competition
with native species prevented any of the seeded eucalyptus from surviving longer than
270 days after seeding. In a broader sense, eucalyptus plantations may facilitate the
regeneration or protection of adjacent native vegetation. Brazilian native forest
fragments embedded in eucalyptus plantations regenerated better than those embedded
in cattle ranches (Freitas de Souza et al., 2010). And though Fonseca et al. (2009) found
only 34.4% of the species characteristic of native Brazilian Araucaria forests in adjacent
eucalyptus plantations, this proportion still represents a considerable maintenance of
biodiversity relative to land-use alternatives. Together, these findings support an
interpretation of the effects of eucalyptus on native vegetation and ecosystems as, at the
very least, benign, though not entirely positive.
2 The species of genera Corymbia and Angophora were, until recently, grouped within Eucalyptus. Though now taxonomically distinct, they are frequently, from an ecological and phenomenological standpoint, considered “eucalypts.”
16
Fig. 1. Paraguay, from Background note: Paraguay (2012b)
Appropriateness for Agroforestry Systems. Concern over the suitability of eucalyptus
as an agroforestry3 species has been motivated by observations in a variety of systems
across the world that when eucalyptus is cultivated with row crops, agricultural growth
and productivity are reduced (Poore and Fries, 1987; Rizvi et al., 1999; Evans and
Turnbull, 2004; Kohli et al., 2006). Hypothesized factors producing this effect include
those mentioned above: superior competitiveness for soil water, depletion of soil
nutrients, and allelopathy. Unsurprisingly, given the context-dependent nature of these
effects in eucalyptus plantation, the verdict on eucalyptus as an agroforestry species is
ambivalent. When grown immediately adjacent to crop species, eucalyptus reduces
their productivity. However, this effect appears to be dependent on: a) distance from a
eucalyptus windbreak, shelterbelt, or block plantation and b) age of the intercropped
trees. The consensus approach among agroforestry researchers is to recommend
systems that entail eucalyptus planted in widely spaced (5 – 11 m) rows as a windbreak
or shelterbelt, with corn, legumes, fodder,
etc. intercalated between the rows
(Ceccon, 2005; Prasad et al., 2010;
Bertomeu, 2012). In these systems, it is
possible to optimize net productivity of
eucalyptus and adjacent crops such that
minor losses in crop yield are offset by the
profitability of the adjacent eucalyptus.
Ahmed (1989) and Ceccon (2005) also
present plantation age as another factor
structuring the role of eucalyptus in
3 I will follow Rizvi and colleagues’ (1999) definition of agroforestry as the combination of “the production of crops (including tree crops) and forest plants, and/or animals simultaneously or sequentially on the same unit of land.”
17
Fig. 2. Eastern Paraguay, from Macedo and Cartes (2003).
agroforestry systems. In the plantations they studied, the eucalyptus-mediated
suppression of adjacent crop species became more pronounced with time, perhaps due
to shading or competition for water. This trend poses an interesting counterpoint to the
tendency, noted above, of eucalyptus allelopathy to diminish with plantation age.
Study Setting: Rural Eastern Paraguay
Geography. Paraguay, one of just two landlocked South American countries, is
located between latitudes 19° and 28° S and longitudes 54° and 63° W (Fig. 1). The
country’s 406,750 km2 surface area is predominantly delineated by the large, navigable
Paraguay and Paranà Rivers and their tributaries. Its climate is subtropical to tropical
and the major broad-scale environmental pattern is the split between Western Paraguay
(also known as the Chaco) and Eastern Paraguay (also known as the Paraneña region;
Fig. 2). Western Paraguay, to the north and west of the Paraguay River´s course
through the country´s center, is arid, hot, and sparsely populated. Over 95% of the
population is located in Eastern Paraguay, a subtropical region with summer from
October to March and winter from May to
August. The mean July temperature in the
country´s capital, Asunciòn, is 18° C, with
only three to 16 days of freezing weather
every winter. Summer temperatures peak
in January, when the average temperature
in Asunciòn is 29° C. The average annual
rainfall in Eastern Paraguay is 127 cm
distributed fairly evenly across the
country, though some regions experience
extreme variations from the average in
local rainfall patterns. Rainfall is lowest in August and highest from March to May and
October to November. Generally, the interior of the Eastern Region – including the
18 towns of Villarica, Coronel Oviedo, Encarnaciòn, and Ciudad del Este – experiences
cooler temperatures and greater rainfall than Asunciòn, which is situated on the edge of
Western Paraguay (Paraguay: a country study, 1990). The country’s topography is
generally flat, with occasional rolling hills providing the most dramatic changes in
relief.
Demography. Paraguay´s population of 6.54 million is young (median age of
25.4) and rapidly growing (1.256% per year). 1.97 million of the country´s inhabitants
live in the vicinity of Asunciòn; 61% live in urban areas; and 2.5% move from rural to
urban zones each year. The population is predominantly Roman Catholic (89.6%) and
ethnically mestizo (95%). Paraguay is unique in South America as the only country
which has legally enshrined an indigenous language – Guaranì, spoken by over 90% of
the population – as a national language (Paraguay 1990). Spanish, spoken by roughly
75% of the population, shares this designation, and is spoken more widely in urban and
institutional settings. Guaranì, however, remains the de facto spoken language of the
home and informal social interactions, especially in rural areas.
Government. Paraguay´s government is a presidential republic dating back to
the end of the Stroessner dictatorship in 1989 and the subsequent 1992 adoption of the
current constitution. Administratively, the country is divided into 17 departments
(analogous to American states) and the capital zone. Each department is itself
subdivided into districts, each with a municipal seat. Districts are partitioned in various
formal and informal ways. For the purposes of this study, rural communities within
districts are known as villages. Presently, the country´s two major political parties are
the center-left Partido Liberal Radical Autèntico (also known as the PLRA or
“Liberales”) and the center-right Asociaciòn Nacional Republicana (also known as the
ANR or “Colorados”). The current president, Fernando Lugo of the leftist Alianza
Patriòtica por el Cambio, is the first Liberal-aligned president to be elected since the
beginning of the country´s post-dictatorship period.
19 Contemporary Political History. Paraguay´s present-day political situation is
best interpreted as the result of 23 years of ambivalent steps leading from dictatorship
toward the development of a democratic state and a market economy. From 1954 to
1989, the country was ruled autocratically by Alfredo Stroessner Mattiauda, a Colorado
military leader who successfully captured the country´s presidency following a coup
against a fellow Colorado, Federico Chaves (Paraguay: a country study, 1990). His
thirty-five year rule, known as the Stronato, marked a period of extreme political
stability and relative economic growth in Paraguay´s modern history. Essentially a
pragmatist, Stroessner maintained control of the presidency by appeasing political
opponents through the channeling of public resources to would-be rivals, brutally
suppressing political dissidents, and manipulating foreign relations to enrich his regime
and, to a lesser extent, to develop the Paraguayan economy (Turner, 1998; Nickson and
Lambert, 2002).
Partnerships with Brazil and the United States and prevailing global economic
conditions were essential in maintaining the veneer of prosperity and credibility that
empowered the Stronato. Joint development of the Itaipu Dam with Brazil infused
Paraguay´s comparatively tiny economy with portions of the 19 billion USD invested in
the project. This massive influx of capital coincided roughly with cotton, timber, wheat,
and soy export booms, which further enriched the national economy and raised the
standard of living, despite their depletion of natural resources and relatively minimal
beneficial effects on the rural poor (Paraguay: a country study, 1990; Weisskoff, 1992;
Carter et al., 1996;). From 1973 to 1982, the influx of funds from the construction of
Itaipu and high global commodity prices produced an annual GDP growth rate
exceeding 8%. During this period, the Stronato also benefitted from its position as a
non-aligned, conservative government located in the heart of Cold War-era South
America (Turner, 1998). A generation of American presidential administrations
supported the Stronato as a bulwark against Latin American socialism, showing their
20 support through military aid of roughly 750,000 USD a year through the beginning of
the Carter presidency (Paraguay: a country study, 1990; Turner, 1998).
With time and the collapse of the domestic and international factors that
strengthened his regime, Stroessner’s hold on power weakened, culminating with his
1989 ouster by fellow Colorado Andrès Rodriguez. A transition to democracy ensued,
culminating with the adoption of the 1992 constitution. During the next 16 years, a
series of democratically elected Colorado administrations oversaw sustained, if often
ineffective and ad hoc, reform of the post-Stronato Paraguayan state. Reform tendencies
during this period included: limited privatization of state-owned assets and
liberalization of economic policy, growth of Paraguay’s historically tiny central
government to provide more extensive and diverse services to rural populations, and
decentralization of many government functions to municipalities and departmental
governments (Nickson and Lambert, 2002; Macedo and Cartes, 2003; Mario et al., 2004).
President Nicanor Duarte Frutos’s 2003-2008 tenure in particular was marked by
stability and moderately effective anti-corruption and reform measures. The 2008
election of Lugo marked the country’s first fully peaceful and democratic transfer of
power between political parties in living memory. Yet, the post-Stroessner
democratization and modernization of Paraguay’s government and economy remain
“unfinished” (Quintana and Morse, 2005). The post-Stronato period has seen two failed
coup attempts and the assassination of a vice-president, and increasing rates of both
crime and political and apolitical “societal violence” (Mario et al., 2004). Paraguay has
long been infamous as an international leader in state corruption. As of 2011,
Transparency International (2011) ranked the country as the nineteenth most corrupt in
the world. Public perception of this venality, sustained high rates of poverty (35% in
2009) and inequality in the distribution of wealth (GINI rating of 52.0), and lack of
political accountability have alienated many Paraguayans from greater support of or
trust in political reform (Nickson and Lambert, 2002; Mario et al., 2004; Paraguay, 2012a;
21 Paraguay, 2012b) Mario and colleagues’ (2004) report neatly summarizes the ongoing
deficiencies in both the state and civil society that militate against political development
in Paraguay: “informality, discretionary and personalistic leadership, nepotism,
factionalism, opportunism and corruption.” These factors were still significant barriers
to effective public administration and political and socioeconomic development during
my 2009-2011 Peace Corps service. Presently, it is still too early to assess the role that
President Lugo’s administration – now only a year away from the end of its five-year
term – has had in the ongoing and often ambivalent struggle toward democratization
and modernization of the post-Stroessner Paraguayan state.
Economics. The Paraguayan economy, like the country’s quasi-modernized state,
is best characterized as idiosyncratic and transitional. Paraguay is described as an
“eminently agricultural” (Macedo and Cartes, 2003) country with a “predominantly
agricultural economy” (Background note: Paraguay, 2012). Agricultural production
dominates national exports, provides exclusive subsistence for 250,000 families, and
remains vital to national identity. Yet the dominance of the Paraguayan agricultural
sector has, in reality, gone the way of the Stronato. Two-thirds of the country’s
population currently dwell in urban areas and the service sector, both formally and
informally, contributes over half of national GDP and employs over half of the labor
force – twice the percentage of GDP and labor force retention for the agricultural sector
(Paraguay, 2009; Background note: Paraguay, 2012). Likewise, Paraguay’s economy
during the post-dictatorship period has been relatively unstable. After construction of
the Itaipu Dam was completed, Paraguay entered a period of economic stagnation and
occasional contraction that lasted from the late 1980s and into the new century (Macedo
and Cartes, 2003; Mario et al., 2004). Yet continued state reforms, favorable production
factors and global prices for agricultural exports, and poverty reduction generated a
GDP growth rate of 15% - the third highest in the world – in 2010 and a modest rate of
6.4% in 2011 (Paraguay, 2012a; Background note: Paraguay, 2012). These contradictions
22 in Paraguay’s economy – the agricultural sector unevenly giving way to the service
sector and poor performance punctuated by globally distinguished growth – further
support an interpretation of Paraguay as a country in ongoing economic transition.
Though foreign capitalization of Itaipu in the 1970s-1980s and the recent upsurge
of the service sector have contributed to Paraguay’s past and current trajectories of
economic development, the country’s economic model over the last fifty years has been
natural resource-based (Weisskoff, 1992; Carter et al., 1996; Macedo and Cartes, 2003).
Exploitation of agricultural and forest resources in “boom” (sensu Carter et al., 1996)
cycles has been and continues to be an especially important dynamic in rural areas.
Cotton and, more recently, soy and wheat production, have been the main drivers of
Paraguay’s “agro-export model of development” (Weisskoff, 1992). Commercial,
mechanized production of soy and wheat (alternated during the summer and winter)
by large landowners and agribusiness remains a critical contributor to Paraguayan
exports and GDP, as well as a driver of deforestation and other environmental
degradation (Macedo and Cartes, 2003). Presently, these crops, along with the
production of animals, corn, and cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) – the cornerstone
staple of the Paraguayan diet – dominate commodity farming in Paraguay (Table 4).
Commercial timber extraction also turned into its own boom as rates of timber harvest
and export accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s (FAO, 2004). However, this pattern of
exploitation was short-lived. Paraguay’s forests were quickly stripped of accessible,
high-value lumber and, in the era before widespread plantation adoption, commercial
production of wood contracted sharply (FAO, 2004). Ironically, the rampant settlement-
and agriculture-driven deforestation of this period and the 1980s did not generate
significant timber-derived revenue. Most forests were simply burned down without any
commercial or subsistence exploitation of the resources they contained (Cartes, 2003).
Thus, though firewood and log production, especially, remain important to household
economies, recent contribution of the forestry sector to national GDP has been minimal
23 (Macedo and Cartes, 2003). The production of forest products usually contributes to no
more than 3.0% of GDP and in 2009, the total value of all forest products exports was
only 5.7% of the value of all exported soy and soy derivatives (FAO, 2004; FAO, 2012)
The advent of widespread plantation forestry may generate a renewed national timber
boom, but, in the mean time, agricultural production dominates national natural
resource-based development.
Paraguay’s historical trajectory of economic development through natural
resource exploitation has served adequately as a basis for the country’s transition from
a traditional, non-industrial, isolated society at the beginning of the twentieth century to
an increasingly modern, service-based, globalised society in the present day (Weisskoff,
1992; Macedo and Cartes, 2003). Yet this development trajectory has produced a
number of negative socioeconomic and environmental consequences. Among the
former are exceedingly high national rates of poverty and inequality in wealth
distribution (Paraguay, 2012a; Paraguay, 2012b). The latter are myriad environmental
problems stemming from the liquidation of most of the country’s once plentiful natural
resources and mismanagement of many that remain (Cartes, 2003). This trend of
agriculture-based development producing some aggregate economic growth but
generally failing to generate affluence, widely distributed better standards of living, and
sustainable progress is not unique to Paraguay. The Paraguayan case fits all four of
Barbier’s (2005) “stylized facts” describing unsustainable, natural resource-based
economic growth in developing countries:
“The majority of low and middle-income countries are highly dependent on primary
products exports.” As discussed above, Paraguay’s economy may at least be in
partial transition away from traditional (Weisskoff, 1992) dependency on
agricultural exports. But these exports are still a critical part of the country’s
economy and are believed to be one of the cornerstones of recent high rates of
growth in GDP (Background note: Paraguay, 2012).
24
“Resource dependency in low and middle-income countries is associated with poor
economic performance.” The afore-mentioned, recent spike in Paraguay’s GDP
notwithstanding, it is unlikely that the country’s economy has changed
qualitatively over the last two years into a consistently high-performing one.
During the Stronato and post-Stroessner periods, expansion of Paraguay’s
economy has been related to foreign investment in dam construction and
agricultural booms (Paraguay: a country study, 1992; Carter et al., 1996). Current
high performance is likely the result of similar ephemeral factors, rather than a
departure from generally anemic economic performance.
“Development in low and middle-income economies is associated with increased land
conversion and stress on freshwater resources.” As noted above, resettlement of
peasant farmers in the Eastern Paraguayan interior and high rates of agriculture-
driven deforestation have led to widespread land conversion. As a result, the
country’s agricultural frontier (sensu Ruttan, 1998) has extended further and
further East toward Brazil and Argentina (Macedo and Cartes, 2003). Though
pockets of unexploited or less-exploited land remain, this frontier is, essentially,
closed to further development (Nickson and Lambert, 2002). As the extant
unexploited natural resources of Eastern Paraguay shrink, land conversion in
more ecologically marginal, arid Western Paraguay has increased (Bucher and
Huszar, 1999; FAO, 2011).
“A significant share of the population in low and middle-income economies is
concentrated on fragile lands.” As noted above, the majority of Paraguay’s rural
population – which still comprises a third of the total populace – dwells in
Eastern Paraguay, with heavy concentration in the deforested, fragile Atlantic
Forest ecoregion. Environmental and economic externalities generated by large
agribusiness and ineffective public policy but borne by the rural poor exacerbate
this dependency on fragile environments (Macedo and Cartes, 2003).
25 As predicted by theory (Barbier, 2005), poorly managed development based on
natural resources has, in Paraguay, produced high rates of poverty, drastic inequality in
wealth, and environmental degradation (Weisskoff, 1992; Carter et al., 1996; Macedo
and Cartes, 2003). More troubling, this trajectory of development appears inherently
unstable, as it is dependent on continued exploitation of increasingly scarce natural
resources and will continue to depend on the vagaries of international markets and
global environmental conditions (e.g. climate change, droughts, etc.). Barbier’s (2005)
recommendations for a transition to more sustainable development, including reforms
to reduce environmentally destructive rent-seeking, corruption, inequality, and rural
poverty, are similar to those of authors studying the specific case of Paraguayan
development and environmental degradation (Weisskoff, 1992; Macedo and Cartes,
2003; Quintana and Morse, 2005).
Environmental Policy. Unfortunately, the Paraguayan government has failed,
with very few exceptions, to generate and implement meaningful environmental policy
pertaining to deforestation and use of forest resources (JICA, 2002; Yanosky and
Cabrera, 2003). Public conservation of reserves and parks has been negligible: more
than 90% of the country’s area is privately owned and only 3.85% of its land cover is
incorporated into the national system of protected areas (Quintana and Morse, 2005).
Worse, the government has historically failed to protect these reserves, allowing for
widespread encroachment and exploitation (Yanosky and Cabrera, 2003; Quintana and
Morse, 2005; Wright et al., 2007).
Relative to those of regional neighbors, Paraguay’s environmental policies and
public agencies are still in their infancies. The country’s first forestry law, Law 422/73,
was passed in 1973, creating the first national forest service, the Servicio Nacional
Forestal (SNF). The SNF, as the agency responsible for the implementation of Law
26 422/73 and subsequent forestry legislation4, was organized as an office of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Ranching (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderìa; MAG). Through the
turn of the century, Paraguay lacked a centralized ministry of environmental affairs and
a holistic, national environmental policy. To the limited extent that ad hoc environmental
policy existed, MAG was, through 2000, responsible for implementing all
environmental law. In 2000, Law 1561/00 created the Secretariat of the Environment
(Secretarìa del Ambiente; SEAM), which has since shared responsibility with MAG for
rule-making and enforcement of natural resource policy (JICA 2002; Yanosky and
Cabrera 2003). In 2008, Law 3464/08 replaced the SNF with the National Forestry
Institute (Instituto Nacional Forestal; INFONA). Since 2008, INFONA has served as an
increasingly muscular, though still drastically underfunded and overextended, forest
service, charged with monitoring compliance with forestry-related laws, promoting
sustainable use of forest resources, and providing extension services. INFONA remains
under the umbrella of MAG, though collaboration between INFONA and SEAM
personnel is common.
It is often remarked that the twenty-first century has seen the development of the
first meaningful Paraguayan environmental policies, but that they have gone generally
unenforced. Indeed, enforcement of existing laws is negligible, especially in cases where
shortages in available government staff and resources, corruption, or political pressure
(e.g. peasants’ groups) militate against it (Yanosky and Cabrera, 2003). For Peace Corps
volunteers serving in Eastern Paraguay, this tendency was epitomized by Law 3663/08,
which theoretically forbade any conversion of forested lands, including the activities
carried out in the countryside on a daily basis by Paraguayan subsistence farmers and
Brazilian agribusiness interests alike. Because of the challenges discussed above,
4 Such as: Law 515/94, prohibiting the export and trafficking of logs, poles, and stakes; Law 536/95, strengthening (re)forestation and plantation establishment; and Law 3663/08, preventing all conversion of forested land to other forms of land-use in Eastern Paraguay.
27 Paraguayan smallholders generally operate independently of natural resource policy.
Large landowners may be forced to mitigate deforestation or submit to government
inspections, but smallholder interactions with public agencies are generally restricted to
relationships with MAG extensionists.
Extension. There are, however, some signs of progress in the fulfillment of
environmental policy objectives. One such success is the rapidly developing role of
INFONA and NGOs as sources of extension and other forms of support for
Paraguayans engaged in reforestation and afforestation projects. Though the precursor
of MAG began offering limited extension for growers of tobacco and cotton in 1923
(Arboleya and Restaino, 2004), the administrative mechanisms for publically
administered forestry extension were not even in place until the 1973 establishment of
the SFN. Early (agro)forestry extension was unsuccessful (Evans, 1988). International
development agencies and private organizations – including a variety of NGOs oriented
toward environmental conservation (Yanosky and Cabrera, 2003) – have often provided
what minimal forestry extension programs were available. Meanwhile, historically, the
focus of the Paraguayan government’s extension programs has been the maximization
of agricultural yield (Hamilton and Bliss 1998), especially among medium- and large-
scale, commercial farmers (Weisskoff, 1992). While commercial forestry interests have
relied on privately acquired expertise, smallholders with an interest in forest
management or plantation forestry have had to resort to “informal experimentation”:
they are forced to bear the costs and risks of new production techniques as they attempt
to adapt them to local conditions (Weisskoff, 1992).
The reorganization of the SFN into INFONA5 may represent a preliminary step
toward greater investment in forestry extension – including those forms of extension
5 Previously, forestry extension was the province of the Dirección de Extensión Agraria (DEAG; the Directorate of Agrarian Extension). Though INFONA is now the primary public provider of forestry extension, DEAG agents frequently incorporate (agro)forestry topics into their agricultural extension
28 relevant to smallholders. Presently, one of the agency’s most important projects is the
promotion of forestry “asentamientos” (settlements) in rural Caazapà (R. Acuña,
personal communication). In this scheme, smallholders organize themselves into
farmers’ committees and petition for assistance in reforesting degraded land and
establishing commercial plantations – often of exotics such as eucalyptus. INFONA then
formally designates several commissions in the same community as an asentamiento.
The asentamiento serves as the primary channel for extension and government grants of
money or materials. In this accessible, smallholder-based extension program, the
Paraguayan government provides extension and subsidies on the condition that
smallholder communities organize themselves and take partial ownership of the
program. This approach represents a departure from previous forestry extension
programs among rural smallholders, which were often underfunded, unsuccessful, and
dependent on the participation of private or international agencies (Evans, 1998;
Hamilton and Bliss, 1998).
Empirical and theoretical studies of rural extension programs suggest that the
qualities of the asentamiento program – pluralism, semi-privatized community
ownership, decentralization, and a focus on reducing poverty of the rural poor –
represent the best chances at success (Wilson, 1991; Antholt, 1998; Binswanger, 1998). It
is still too early to tell whether programs like asentamiento-based extension will be
successful. Chronic deficiencies in personnel and funds may ultimately limit their
extent to a few regions (R. Acuña, personal communication). Success of the
asentamiento program would be a crucial step – not only in the fomentation of a
productive forestry sector, but also in the development of strategies for fighting rural
work. Additionally, DEAG and INFONA are both offices of MAG, the Ministry of Agriculture and Ranching.
29 deforestation in the Atlantic Forest through more sustainable silviculture (Kangas and
Rivera, 1991).
As detailed above, the main causes of Eastern Paraguay’s environmental crisis –
high rates of deforestation and mismanagement of extant natural resources – are
themselves driven by a variety of deeper factors: historical contingencies, poverty and
inequality, insufficient or poorly designed/implemented policies, poorly managed and
unsustainable growth, and demographic pressures. As a result, the region’s
smallholders are faced with the prospect of depletion of the natural capital from the
Atlantic Forest ecoregion and a concomitant deepening of already considerable rural
poverty (Macedo and Cartes, 2003). This dynamic is typical of the cycle of deforestation
that has accompanied settlement of the Atlantic Forest over the last sixty years (Fig. 3).
Yet, in the present day, this pattern of exploitation is increasingly unsustainable: only a
few patches of unexploited Atlantic Forest remain, encircled by an agricultural frontier
bereft of further opportunities for expansion (Quintana and Morse, 2005). The
promotion and adoption of sustainable forestry practices represents one opportunity for
sustainable management of Eastern Paraguay’s remaining natural resources.
Population Growth
Competition from Agribusiness
Soil Degradation
High Commodity Prices
Mechanization of Farming
Closure of Agricultural Frontier
Clearing of New Land
Slash-and-burn Agriculture/Ranching
Sale of Land to Large
Landowners
Flight to Urban Areas
Rural Poverty
Fig. 3. The cycle of deforestation in the Paraguayan Atlantic Forest region. Adapted from Weisskoff, 1992; Evans, 1988; Cartes, 2003; Macedoand Cartes, 2003.
30 Research Objectives
As the preceding literature review the character of Paraguayan eucalyptus
silviculture is impossible to describe in a clear, useful way when taken out of context.
Yet I could find virtually no documentation of the silvicultural practice and economic
and environmental context of Paraguayan eucalyptus plantation forestry, especially
among smallholders in rural communities. My experiences as an agroforestry
extensionist in rural Paraguay as well as conversations I had with smallholders and my
colleagues in MAG and various NGOs convinced me that eucalyptus plantation
forestry has become, is, and will continue to be a component of the country’s rural
economy and ecology. As a result, it behooves those interested in the sustainable
development of the region to have a better sense of the key factors shaping smallholder
eucalyptus plantation forestry in rural Eastern Paraguay. This conviction motivated my
development of the foregoing four research objectives.
My first research objective is to characterize the silvicultural practices associated
with eucalyptus plantation forestry among smallholders in Eastern Paraguay. Though
prescriptive guides and, to a lesser extent, descriptive accounts of large-scale plantation
forestry abound both in the gray (Whitesell et al., 1992; Cossalter and Pye-Smith, 2003)
and academic literature (Couto and Dube, 2001; West, 2006), empirical accounts of the
realized, on-the-ground silvicultural practices of smallholders are rare. I follow Byron
(2001) in recognizing this as a major gap in the forestry and development literature:
“There has been relatively little research or even field experience with smallholder
timber plantations, particularly in tropical developing countries…[as] smallholders
will…not just mimic the techniques developed for large-scale plantations by
researchers.” This absence of meaningful research addressing the practices and needs of
plantation-owning smallholders is especially pronounced in the case of Paraguay. I was
only able to locate a few scholarly papers (Weisskoff, 1992; Carter et al., 1996; Evans,
1998; Hamilton and Bliss, 1998; Riezebos and Loerts, 1998; Turner, 1998; Cockle et al.,
31 2005; Quintana and Morse, 2005; Wright et al., 2007; Cubbage et al., 2010) that
specifically address matters of Paraguayan forest resources, forestry practices and
associated economic and environmental concerns. The majority of the literature
reviewed in this report instead describes research in the neighboring regions of
northern Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay.
By speaking with smallholders about their eucalyptus plantations and
conducting site visits when possible, I have attempted to construct a preliminary sketch
of small-scale silviculture in eight communities in Eastern Paraguay. I have focused on
the characterization of the main silvicultural practices: plantation design, site
preparation, propagule type and origin, plantation establishment, post-plantation
treatment (cleaning, pruning, thinning, fertilizing, and plant protection), harvesting,
and agroforestry/silvopastoral management.6 Quantitative analysis through exploratory
descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing has allowed for a characterization of both
the commonalities and diversities to be found among plantations, both across all study
sites and within and among local and regional groups of study sites. This analysis will
prove especially useful for forestry extensionists and development workers in Paraguay
and will inform current discussions about the adoption of eucalyptus silviculture
among rural smallholders.
My second objective is to characterize the economics of smallholder eucalyptus
plantations in the study area, including the role of extension and governmental and
non-governmental programs in promoting plantation adoption. As noted above,
economic analyses (such as Cubbage et al., 2010) of the costs and revenues of eucalyptus
plantations are exclusively confined to discussions of large-scale commercial
plantations. Smallholders operate on different economies of scale, access different
6 Following Nair (1993), I will treat silvopastoral systems (plantations of trees managed as pasture for animals) as a subset of agroforestry systems (plantations of trees associated with agricultural crops).
32 markets, and have different economic objectives (e.g. producing fuelwood or poles)
than do large, commercial producers (Carter et al., 1996; Byron, 2001; Boulay et al., 2012).
When possible, I will seek to characterize the economic context within which
Paraguayan smallholders have adopted eucalyptus plantation forestry, with special
attention to: smallholder household economics, motivations and desires for adoption,
the role of farmers’ committees and development projects, extension needs and
provision, propagule sources, plantation expenditures and incomes, products produced
by plantations, and market perceptions. Quantitative analysis, as described above vis-à-
vis my first research objective, and qualitative analysis through descriptive and
evaluation coding of interviews (Saldaña, 2011) with plantation owners will provide for
an unprecedented characterization of the economic and institutional context of
eucalyptus plantation forestry among rural Eastern Paraguayan smallholders.
My third objective is to characterize the environmental and ecological context –
in terms of home wood consumption, land-use planning, and environmental
perceptions – of smallholder eucalyptus plantation forestry in the study area. As noted
above, there is a deficit of scholarly literature addressing matters of environmental
concern with specific reference to Paraguay. Yet this gap in knowledge is juxtaposed
against two negative trends in environmental quality: significant, sustained
deforestation in Eastern Paraguay and a major national boom in eucalyptus plantation
forestry (C. Sosa and R. Acuña, personal communication) despite the often ambivalent
environmental impacts of eucalyptus cultivation. It is critical to develop a better
understanding of how eucalyptus plantation forestry among smallholders fits into
regional patterns of land-use and household economy. Additionally, information
regarding the environmental attitudes of plantation owners toward eucalyptus and,
more generally, the value of forest resources, will help extensionists and policymakers
to predict the results of programs designed to protect the Paraguayan environment.
33
In discussing the environmental context of eucalyptus plantation forestry with
smallholders, I focused, when possible, on study participants’ household use of wood
resources; land-use preferences relative to eucalyptus plantations; interest and
investment in forestry with other taxa; and perceptions of deforestation, the nativeness
of eucalyptus, and the possible environmental impacts of eucalyptus cultivation.
Quantitative and qualitative analysis will follow the strategies detailed in the above
descriptions of my first and second research objectives. The conclusions that I draw
from this study of the environmental context of eucalyptus silviculture among
smallholders will directly inform my final objective of theory testing.
Consideration of the objectives noted above will provide for my fourth objective
of testing relevant theory regarding eucalyptus plantation forestry against the case of
rural Eastern Paraguayan smallholders. Specifically, I will draw on conclusions from
my first three objectives to explore the following questions:
Do eucalyptus plantations “spare” natural forests (sensu Sejo and Botkin, 1997)?
Plantations of all kinds have been widely presented as a form of land-use and
investment that militates both for and against the protection, valuation, and
quality of natural forests. Which dynamic characterizes the situation among
smallholders interviewed in this study?
Are eucalyptus plantations an economical and practical investment for
smallholders? Boosters (Byron, 2001; Sedjo, 2001) and detractors (Shiva and
Bandyopadhyay, 1987; Doughty, 2000) have routinely debated this question in
anecdotal terms. Do eucalyptus plantations make economic sense for
smallholders in Eastern Paraguay?
Are eucalyptus plantations environmentally beneficial or deleterious? As the
preceding literature review makes clear, empirical studies of eucalyptus
plantations have supported positive, negative, and ambivalent ecological
interpretations of eucalyptus. Keeping in mind that all conclusions are
34
necessarily local and contextual, what are the environmental effects of
smallholder eucalyptus silviculture in Eastern Paraguay?
Structure of the Report
In the foregoing analysis, I will address my four research objectives. Chapter 2
consists of a description of the design and methodology of my study. In chapter 3, I
present and discuss my first three study objectives – those pertaining to the
silvicultural, economic, and environmental characterization of eucalyptus plantation
forestry. In chapter 4, I return to my fourth research objective of theory testing and
present critical themes emerging from my discussion of all four research objectives. In
chapter 5, I provide recommendations for the improvement of extension related to
eucalyptus plantation forestry among rural Eastern Paraguayan smallholders and
suggest directions for future research.
Chapter 2: Methods
Study Design
To address my previously enumerated research objectives, I conducted a case
study of smallholder eucalyptus plantation forestry in Eastern Paraguay. Yin (2003)
defines a case study as “an empirical inquiry that
Investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially
when
the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident…[and]
copes with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more
variables of interests than data points, and as one result
relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a
triangulating fashion, and as another result
35
benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data
collection and analysis.”
The case study methodology is apt given my topic and research objectives. My study
topic is a real life phenomenon structured by a variety of historical, political, economic,
psychological, technical, and biological factors that cannot be disentangled from one
another or their “context.” I have relied on both quantitative and qualitative, or mixed-
methods (sensu Creswell, 2003) approaches in the collection and analysis of data from
multiple sources. And, finally, my investigation of the phenomenon was, in part,
inspired by theory regarding the economic and environmental implications of
eucalyptus plantation forestry.
Following Yin (2003), I have built my study around a “holistic, multiple-case”
design. This strategy is appropriate when the study objective is to generate an
understanding of the “global nature” of a study population consisting of more than a
single unit. In this case, my study population consists of 45 rural families (multiple
natural units) engaged in eucalyptus plantation forestry in Eastern Paraguay (a unified
phenomenon with, presumably, a global nature). In carrying out this case study, I
collected and analyzed information about each participating family (each “participant”)
and all 45 families (the “study population”) using a mixed-methods strategy. Creswell
(2003) defines this as an approach:
“in which the researcher tends to base knowledge claims on pragmatic
grounds (e.g. consequence-oriented, problem-centered, and pluralistic). It
employs strategies of inquiry that involve collecting data either
simultaneously or sequentially to best understand research problems. The
data collection also involves gathering both numeric information (e.g., on
instruments) as well as text information (e.g., on interviews) so that the
final database represents both quantitative and qualitative information.”
36
Again, the mixed-methods approach was an appropriate choice for my study. I
conceived of the study in response to specific problems and needs that arose in my
community and across the region during my first year of Peace Corps service in Eastern
Paraguay. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the objectives addressed, I collected
interviews, conducted site visits, and performed coding-based analysis (qualitative
approaches), and also extracted numerical data from the interviews and analyzed them
statistically (quantitative approaches). This simultaneous approach to addressing my
research objectives is consistent with a mixed-methods study.7
Data collection in this study occurred during interviews and subsequent site
visits with participants. Because I structured the study both to characterize realized
practices and outcomes of eucalyptus forestry within the study population and to test
prevailing theory regarding the economic and ecological role of plantation forestry,
interviews were an appropriate way of generating data. Interviews conducted
voluntarily, with an appropriate attitude, in natural settings (e.g. homes or workplaces),
and regarding issues central to daily life provide quality information regarding
participants’ perspectives (Axelsson and Angelstam, 2011; Boulay et al., 2012;
Vihervaara et al., 2012; Asah et al., 2012). These perspectives may be equal or superior in
value to biophysical indicators in studies of natural resource use. In a study of the
institutional context of forest management, Poteete and Ostrom (2002) note that
“…perceptions of forest conditions by local users may predict institutional
development better than actual forest conditions, since local action depends on
perceived benefits from the forest and threats to them.” Similarly, because my
objectives deal with the silvicultural practices and economic and environmental context
of smallholder forestry, it is appropriate to rely on interview data that describe
7 And see Quintana and Morse (2005) for a similar blending of mixed quantitative and qualitative analysis of environmental issues in a Paraguayan context.
37 smallholder perceptions of, for instance, wood scarcity, the usefulness of eucalyptus in
the household, and the extent of local deforestation.
My analysis of these data follows Creswell’s (2003) “concurrent nested strategy,”
in which there is “one data collection phase, during which both quantitative and
qualitative data are collected simultaneously…[but one] method (quantitative or
qualitative) is embedded, or nested, within the predominant method (quantitative or
qualitative)…The data collected from the two methods are mixed during the analysis
phase of the project.” In this model, “a primarily qualitative design could embed some
quantitative data to enrich the description of the sample participants…[while]
qualitative data could be used to describe an aspect of a quantitative study that cannot
be quantified.” I will deploy quantitative and qualitative strategies in this way: deriving
informative numeric data, such as plantation size, from interview responses but relying
on qualitative analysis of the interviews to speak to matters that quantitative data
cannot address, such as the factors motivating participants to adopt eucalyptus
plantation forestry and their perceptions regarding the environmental effects of
eucalyptus plantations. Qualitative data analysis will also enable me to convey the
context of my study in ways that would be impossible through a purely quantitative
approach.
Considerations of Study Quality
Though case studies, like all forms of empirical research, suffer from certain
weaknesses, I designed and executed this study to ensure fulfillment of the four criteria
identified by Yin (2003) as tests of quality in empirical social research: construct
validity, internal and external validity, and reliability. I detail my strategies for
conforming to each standard of quality research below.
Construct Validity. A case study can be said to have met the requirement of
construct validity if the parameters measured in the study (e.g. reported number of
trees on a hectare of plantation) actually correspond with the phenomena that an
38 investigator wishes to explore (e.g. “stocking rate”). In developing the study, I ensured
construct validity by developing precise definitions of the study population (discussed
below) and parameters and by using both quantitative and qualitative analysis of the
data to converge on my research objectives.
Internal Validity. A case study can be said to be internally valid if causal
relationships among parameters are measured and interpreted appropriately. Of the
two potential problems stemming from insufficient internal validity identified by Yin
(2003) – inappropriate inference about causal relationships and inappropriate inference
stemming from indirect observations – the former is not a potential problem for my
explanatory (rather than causal) case study. The latter problem, which must be
considered whenever data describe phenomena that are not directly observed, is,
however, a potential source of criticism. This internal validity deficit could arise
because I cannot supplement my interviews, which entailed participant observations
regarding a variety of biophysical and economic phenomena, with direct measures of
those phenomena themselves. My response to this potential problem is twofold. First,
following Poteete and Ostrom (2002), I propose that perceptions of parameters may
correlate with the underlying states that inspire them or, in the case of attitudes shaping
resource use, serve as more appropriate parameters than the underlying states
themselves. Second, in my analysis, I will strive to draw conclusions about smallholder
perceptions of phenomena such as wood scarcity and deforestation, rather than about
the phenomena per se.
External Validity. A case study can be considered externally valid if findings can
be generalized appropriately from the study population to a population of interest in
the wider world. I designed my case study to ensure external validity through the logic
of “analytical generalization” (sensu Yin, 2003). Analytical generalization occurs
through the comparison of findings from a case study to relevant theory. Thus, case
study findings can either support or refute the existence of those patterns within the
39 study population as predicted by the theory being tested. This strategy presents a stark
contrast to the “statistical generalization” typical of quantitative experiments, in which
many replicates can be compared to one another to derive estimates of central tendency,
spread, etc. and to facilitate hypothesis testing. The multiple cases (45 participants)
considered in my study do not serve as replicates, but rather, as distinct cases included
in order to provide for an exhaustive, rather than probabilistic description of the study
population and to test relevant theory. As discussed below, I included each participant
in the study based on conformity to a well-defined series of standards for “smallholder
eucalyptus plantation owners in rural Eastern Paraguay.” Fulfillment of this condition
will allow me to generalize about that population from a limited data set. My findings,
therefore, can be said to be externally valid.
Reliability. A reliable case study is one that would generate the same findings if
carried out by a later investigator using the original investigator’s methodology. To
ensure reliability, I have fully and clearly documented my methods (below) and
developed an accessible hard copy and electronic database, including a printed copy of
the spreadsheet containing all data derived from interviews and copies of English-
language translations of all the interviews themselves.
Data Collection
Study Population. Because my objectives in this study deal with analysis of
smallholder eucalyptus plantation owners in rural Eastern Paraguay, I selected a study
population that would allow for analytical generalization, as described above. It is
estimated that smallholder eucalyptus plantation forestry occurs in all 14 departments
of Eastern Paraguay, though the approximate number of participating households is
unknown (C. Sosa, personal communication). As a Peace Corps volunteer conducting
forestry research, I experienced several constraints and advantages in gaining access to
potential study participants. My mobility was limited as I was unable to drive a car or
motorcycle and I was encouraged not to leave my home village for longer than several
40 days at a time. As a volunteer, I had limited time and funds to devote to locating and
enrolling participants. On the other hand, I was fluent in Guaraní and Spanish, the two
languages spoken in Eastern Paraguay, and had, by virtue of my work as an
extensionist, developed a variety of skills for interacting and building trust with rural
smallholders. I was also very familiar with the context of smallholder eucalyptus
plantation forestry in my small, rural village and knew a number of other volunteers
who were knowledgeable in this way about eucalyptus plantation forestry in their own
villages. As such, I developed a study population consisting of all accessible
smallholder eucalyptus plantation-owning families in eight rural, Eastern Paraguay
villages inhabited by volunteers in the Environment and Agriculture sectors of the U.S.
Peace Corps. A Peace Corps volunteer (either me or a colleague) would approach the
head of a family in his or her village and informally suggest participation in the study.
After receiving consent, we would arrange a follow-up encounter, during which I
would conduct an interview and plantation visit if this was still amenable to the head(s)
of family. In each of the eight villages, I was able to survey all or the majority of
plantation-owning smallholders, though there were some households that I could not
reach. Because of this shortcoming and my process for selecting villages to visit, my
study population can be thought of as an “incomplete census” (Gorard, 2003), with
villages selected by convenience sampling.
For the purposes of delimiting the study population, I used the following
definitions:
Eastern Paraguay: all Paraguayan departments except Alto Paraguay, Boqueròn,
and Presidente Hayes, and the capital district
Smallholders: families for which a primary economic activity is farming or
ranching and who do not rely primarily on hired labor to manage fields,
livestock, or tree crops
41
Fig. 4. Villages where study participants lived are indicated by purple (department San Pedro), green (Cordillera), Red (Caazapà), and Blue (Itapùa) stars. Map adapted from http://newspaper.li/paraguay/.
Eucalyptus plantation: a spatially contiguous collection of individuals of
Eucalyptus sp. planted intentionally to provide one or more benefits other than
adornment and managed toward that end
With the assistance of eight other
volunteers (two of whom lived in the same
village), I located a total of forty-five
households in our villages who met the
criteria of smallholders with eucalyptus
plantation forests in Eastern Paraguay. The
study population, therefore, consists of 45
participants living in eight villages,
corresponding to seven municipalities in
four departments (Table 5). I assigned each
village a code letter (A-H) to protect the
confidentiality of participants, but have
otherwise identified municipality and department locations (Fig. 4). Each village had
hosted a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer for between seven and twenty-two months at the
time of participants´ interviews. Interviews took place from April to October 2011. Five
of the eight participating villages were located in two of the three departments with the
highest rates of eucalyptus plantation forestry: Caazapà and San Pedro (C. Sosa,
personal communication). I was not able to interview participants in Alto Paranà, the
other center of eucalyptus cultivation, because the Peace Corps places relatively few
Environment and Agriculture volunteers there and because of travel constraints.
All villages were located in rural areas in which the main economic activities
were farming and ranching. Dominant subsistence crops in the region were cassava,
corn, peanuts, and beans. Family gardens for vegetable production, cattle ranching, and
small animal production (of chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, pigs, sheep, and goats) also
42 contributed to the provision of domestic food needs. Though corn was a common cash
crop across Eastern Paraguay, other important cash crops did vary among the study
departments: Caazapeñans specialized in cotton, citrus, and yerba mate; Cordillerans in
watermelon and produce; San Pedranos in banana, pineapple, essence of orange,
tobacco, and sesame; and Itapúans in yerba mate, citrus, wheat, soy, sesame, and tung
(Vernicia fordii [Hemsl.] Airy Shaw). Tree crops in these villages included not only
citrus, banana, tung, and yerba mate, but also forest plantations of other native and
exotic species, as described in chapter 3.
The smallest surveyed villages consisted of only a few dozen households, with
larger villages not exceeding 200-300 households. In some villages, few (e.g. 5 of 120 in
village A) smallholders had adopted eucalyptus plantation forestry while in others (e.g.
11 of ~25 in village D), adoption was quite prevalent.
Interview Methodology. The bulk of my data collection occurred during 45
participant interviews. Prior to conducting interviews, I applied to the University of
Washington’s human subject review board for permission to do so. My proposal was
approved on two conditions. To protect the anonymity of participants, I was required to
dissociate data derived during each interview from participant names, precise locations,
and other identifying information. I was also required to erase all audio recordings of
interviews, leaving only anonymous interview transcripts and translations.
I met with study participants at their own or a neighbor’s home or in their fields
or plantations and, after introductions, conducted an interview lasting from 15 minutes
to 90 minutes. The interviews were semi-structured, consisting of open- and close-
ended questions and were conducted in the language of choice of the participant –
either Guaranì (n = 44) or Spanish (n = 1). In many cases, participants were not able or
did not wish to answer all of the questions in the interview instrument. Additionally, I
occasionally omitted questions that I believed would not be appropriate for a given
participant. Therefore, every participant did not respond to every question in the
43 instrument. I conducted all interviews in villages A and B using a preliminary pilot
survey. After completing these first nine interviews, I removed a number of questions
from the interview instrument and clarified a number of others. The version appended
to this report represents the instrument used in villages C-H (Appendix A1-A3). I took
hand-written notes while conducting the interviews and used an Olympus Digital
Voice Recorder WS-600S (Tokyo: Olympus Imaging Corp.) to record each encounter. In
most interviews conducted in villages B-H,8 the resident Peace Corps volunteer
accompanied me to each interview to provide me with germane background
information and help build rapport with local participants. Interviews were conducted
with one or two heads of household of the participating family, though I will refer to
each family or household as a “participant” for the purposes of this report. Each
participant was assigned a code consisting of the pertinent village code and a number
(e.g. A1 was the first interview I conducted and H6, the last). I collected information
about the household economy of each participant at the beginning of each interview,
and I present this data in the third chapter of this report. I made sure that every
interview was preceded by a discussion with the participant of the voluntary,
exploratory nature of the process and his/her freedom to refuse to answer a question or
to end the interview at will.
In most cases, I was able to visit a participant’s eucalyptus plantation with
him/her following the interview. I did not record these interviews, but did take written
notes, which I later used to supplement and/or correct data mined from interview
transcripts.
I also interviewed three forestry professionals – Raquel Acuña (forestry engineer,
INFONA), Porfirio Diaz (agricultural engineer, DEAG [Dirección de Extensión
Agraria]), and Carmelo Sosa (forestry engineer, INFONA) in their offices in San Juan
8 Village A was my home village, where I lived and worked as an agroforestry extension volunteer.
44 Nepomuceno (Acuña and Diaz) and San Lorenzo (Sosa). Our discussions covered
trends in eucalyptus plantation forestry, technical extension and financial support
available for interested or participating smallholders, and emerging and recommended
techniques for and technologies of eucalyptus production. I recorded these interviews
and wrote up summaries of each. I have incorporated contextual information from
these interviews into this report.
Data Analysis
Interview Formatting. I transcribed all participant interviews and then
translated them into English, following Krivoshein de Canese and Acosta Alcaraz (2006)
when necessary and bolding those portions of the dialogue that I spoke. As a precaution
to safeguard the study’s chain of evidence, I printed out copies of all the formatted
interview translations (443 pages) and collected them in a binder. I undertook all
transcription, translation, and formatting in Microsoft Word (Redmond, WA: Microsoft
Corporation).
Data Mining and Descriptive Statistics. After completing the formatting of all
45 interviews, I created a Microsoft Excel workbook to use in the mining and
organization of quantitative data from the interview transcripts. I reviewed each
transcript’s English translation and recorded data, when available, for 176 parameters.
These parameters were associated with nominal (e.g. cattle ownership of “yes” or “no”),
ordinal (e.g. firewood scarcity of “scarce,” “moderate,” or “abundant”), and ratio (e.g.
household size of 2 to 12) data. For each parameter, I calculated a total count of all
respondents for whom the parameter could be assessed and either proportional and
total values for each response (for nominal and ordinal data) or a mean value for each
response (for ratio data). In a separate worksheet, I produced 77 new parameters
derived by grouping the initial data based on village and department. Thus, each of the
77 derived parameters was associated with 13 values: one for each village and
department of the study population and a global proportion, mean, or total for the
45 whole study population. This set of derived values allowed for descriptive statistical
analysis of the quantitative data based on village- or department-level variation.
Inferential Statistics. I followed Zar (2010) in calculating inferential statistics in
order to further explore the possibility of geographic structure in the quantitative data
derived from the study population. Because participants in the study population were
recruited non-randomly through a census-style procedure, I treated the observations of
all participants as independent and thus subject to inferential statistical analysis, as long
as inference is not inappropriately extended to rural Eastern Paraguay. However,
because the quantitative data I derived from interviews failed to follow a normal
distribution, they were not ideally suited to parametric tests. As a result, I have relied
on non-parametric procedures.
When exploring parameters for which I had ratio data, I used the non-parametric
Kruskal-Wallis test to assess difference in central location among populations consisting
of all participants living in the same department. When the tests showed significant
non-equality of central tendency at the .05 level of type-one error, I partitioned the
resulting variation using the Tukey Test of Honest Difference (Tukey test), also at a
type-one error level of .05. I used SPSS, ver. 14 (Armonk, NY: IBM) to perform all
Kruskal-Wallis and Tukey tests.
When exploring parameters for which I had nominal and ordinal data, I
constructed contingency tables displaying the frequency of participant responses (e.g. a
2 x 4 table showing answers of “yes” and “no” to a closed-ended question for
participants grouped by department). I then carried out chi-squared tests for non-
equality among frequencies within the table. I performed all calculations by hand, using
Excel for arithmetic, and compared calculated test statistics to critical values (Zar, 2010)
at the .05 and .01 levels of type one-error.
Coding and Qualitative Analysis. To assess interviews qualitatively, I imported
all interview translations into NVivo ver. 9 (Doncaster, Victoria: QSR International)
46 software. I then coded the interviews into pre-determined (“top-down”) hierarchical
nodes, using Saldaña’s (2011) first-cycle descriptive and evaluation coding protocols. I
reviewed coded material by nodule, re-grouped nodules, eliminated nodules, and re-
coded interviews as necessary, then exported all coded segments to Microsoft Word. I
used coded data to address my first three research objectives (chapter 3) and to answer
theory tested as part of my fourth research objective (chapter 4). I also followed Saldaña
in using coded data to develop a set of critical themes emerging from qualitative
analysis. These themes are also presented in chapter 4.
Minimization of Bias. Interview-based research is vulnerable to bias stemming
from participant misrepresentation as well as researcher misinterpretation (Sommer
and Sommer, 1997). Yet, I have a high degree of confidence that this report presents an
unbiased portrayal of eucalyptus plantation forestry within the study population. In
carefully selecting the study population and conducting interviews, I minimized three
potential sources of interview-based bias: willful participant misrepresentation,
accidental participant misrepresentation, and researcher misinterpretation.
Untruthfulness regarding sensitive study topics such as illegal conversion of forest on
personal property or prices paid for specific products or services can arise in cases
where participants feel that a truthful answer may result in a loss of face or legal or
political repercussions. My own and my Peace Corps colleagues’ status in the study
population and relationships with participants were such that there was very little
incentive for participants to lie to me during interviews. In each village of the study
population, the local Peace Corps volunteer was viewed as a helpful presence and was
not associated with the offices of the national government charged with implementing
natural resource policy or collecting taxes. Volunteers were also generally viewed as
trusted neighbors. As such, the incentives that would have favored lying to “outsiders”
were eliminated. In cases where participants appeared to be uncertain about their
responses to interview questions or where it was difficult for them to provide precise
47 answers, I omitted their responses from subsequent analysis. I struck several questions
from my initial pilot study for these reasons: it was clear that few participants could
answer them confidently or precisely. This minimized the possibility of unwilling
participant misrepresentation. Finally, my fluency in Guaranì, my familiarity with local
customs, and the orientation provided in villages B-H by my colleagues allowed me to
interpret participant-derived data with a high degree of accuracy, limiting researcher-
introduced bias.
Chapter 3: Results and Analysis
In this chapter, I present and discuss findings derived from mixed-methods
analysis corresponding to my first three research objectives. I address my fourth
research objective and present integrated, cross-objective analysis in the succeeding
chapter.
Silvicultural Treatment
Plantation Design. I categorized participant plantations into six general groups:
monospecific eucalyptus plantations (44%), mixed plantations of eucalyptus with other
timber trees (9%), informal woodlots9 (13%), silvopastoral systems of eucalyptus with
pasture grass (18%), row crop agroforestry systems (11%), and windbreaks (4%).
Participants generally planted pure and mixed plantations, silvopastoral systems, and
row crop agroforestry systems in block formation. Informal woodlots and, of course,
windbreaks, generally consisted of single or multiple lines of eucalyptus along field or
yard boundaries.
9 I treated eucalyptus plantings as informal woodlots rather than pure or mixed block plantations based
on differences in spatial layout and participant attitudes toward the systems in question. Informal
woodlots included lines of a few dozen trees in participants’ yards, remnants of harvested block
plantations, and other ad hoc arrangements.
48
Fig. 5. A participant in Village A stands next to a one year-old eucalyptus tree planted through “taungya”: the establishment of a stand of trees by plantation in existing row crops. In this case, the newly planted eucalyptus is not yet old enough to reduce adjacent row crop yield.
Though plantation size varied from just a few dozen trees to two hectares in size,
mean plantation size for the study population was just over 600 trees on three-quarters
of a hectare. This produced a mean stocking rate of roughly 824 stems/hectare.
However, the mean distance between trees was 2.67 m, with a mean distance between
rows of 3.13 m (Table 6). These distances, if maintained across a fully stocked hectare,
would produce a tree density of more than a thousand trees per hectare. This density
would be manageable for a smallholder and is typical of commercial plantations.
However, these data and my observations during site visits show that smallholder
plantations generally consisted of denser patches of trees interspersed with open
ground or patches where trees have died, have been felled, or were never planted in the
first place.
Stocking rates were significantly
different among the four departments
represented in the study population (Χ2 =
10.17, p = .017). Participants in Cordillera
planted at a mean density of 333 stems/ha,
which a post-hoc Tukey test partitioned
from the Itapúa mean of 1,426 trees/ha.
Intermediate stocking rates in Caazapá and
San Pedro grouped together with both of
the extreme means.
Plantation owners showed mixed
preferences for planting in wet (37%) versus
“normal” or dry (63%) sites and on sloped
(36%) versus flat (64%) ground (Table 6).
Beyond stocking, none of the other parameters of plantation design that I surveyed
showed evidence of geographically structured systematic difference.
49 Site Preparation. Table 7 displays the relative usages of various site preparation
techniques prior to the planting of eucalyptus seedlings. A number of participants
recognized the criticality of planting in a weed-free or low-weed site to the successful
establishment of the seedlings. This was accomplished through dedicated machete
clearing (31%), plowing (13%), and hoeing (11%), but also, encouragingly, through the
use of “taungya” agroforestry techniques (sensu Nair, 1993). Taungya entails the
plantation of tree seedlings in an existing annual crop field (Fig. 5). Over successive
years, the farm owner can maintain productivity in the young tree plantation as the
saplings become established. Annual production may eventually decline or cease once
adjacent trees begin competing for water or light. But the system provides the
advantages of providing income during what would otherwise be an unproductive
phase of plantation development and allowing farmers to clean weeds from both
annual and tree crops at the same time. This integration of tree crop care into already
essential farm maintenance makes agroforestry systems more appealing to smallholders
who may not feel that they have the available resources to devote to caring for a
separate plantation (Hamilton and Bliss, 1998). 49% of study participants planted their
eucalyptus in previously weeded fields of cassava (29%), corn (22%), and/or a variety of
other crops (18%) such as beans, garden produce, and fruit trees.
Propagule type. Study participants established their plantations using two kinds
of propagules: seeds gathered from mature eucalyptus in the community (22%) or
seedlings purchased or received from a variety of sources (91%) (Table 8). Several
participants both grew their own seeds and also used bought or gifted seedlings.
Farmers producing their own seeds used a variety of techniques, most of them
variations on a germination box filled with forest soil and manure. Seeds were never
purchased and were usually collected from a neighbor’s tree(s). Farmers living in
50
Fig. 6. Containerized “maceta” eucalyptus seedlings arrive in Village A.
villages C and D, located close to the “Tapyta” commercial forestry plantation10 in
Caazapá, were able to obtain E. grandis seeds of presumably higher quality from friends
and relatives employed there. Those who used the “vivero” (“nursery”) method of
growing their own seedlings generally transplanted them directly from germination
boxes or kept them in “macetas” (black plastic bags used commonly as seedling
containers; Fig. 6) for some months prior to transplanting. The standard propagule for
farmers receiving containerized seedlings was a plant of roughly seven to eight cm in a
maceta.
Plantation Establishment. Though plantation age ranged from recently planted
to 20 years, half of the participants had established a plantation in the last five years
(Table 8). There was significant (Χ2 = 13.56, p
= .004) regional non-equality of plantation
age. Participants in Caazapà had fairly
young plantations (mean age of 2.90 years),
which a post-hoc Tukey test partitioned
from the Itapùa mean plantation age (7.91
years). The intermediate ages of the San
Pedro and Cordillera plantations were such
that the Tukey test grouped them with both
Caazapà and Itapùa. This may reflect the
relatively recent origins of the Caazapà
10 The “Tapyta” plantation is a holding of Desarrolos Madereros SA, a division of the Buenos Aires-based company Pomera Maderas (http://www.pomera.com.ar/index.html). As of 2012, Pomera Maderas maintained 6,000 ha of pines and 11,000 ha of eucalyptus plantations in northeastern Argentina and southeastern Paraguay. In Caazapá, the Tapyta plantation played a main role in igniting the departmental eucalyptus boom, in inspiring smallholders to adopt eucalyptus farming, and in disseminating technical information and eucalyptus propagules (R. Acuña and P. Diaz, personal communication).
51 timber boom. In village G, no new plantations had been established over the last six
years – a higher figure than for other villages. This is suggestive of the important role
(discussed below) of development projects in promoting eucalyptus adoption in the
community.
Because participant estimates of seedling mortality within the first few months of
plantation establishment were often imprecise, vague, or possibly exaggerated, I did not
assess these data statistically. However, anecdotally, it appears that many participants
lost large portions of their newly planted seedlings to drought, ant predation,
competition with weeds, and other factors. Estimates of 10-50% losses were not
uncommon. Eucalyptus notoriously requires intensive care after planting (Lamprecht,
1989), though, as some participants noted, it is quite hardy after exceeding the height of
surrounding understory vegetation.
Plantation Management. Smallholders showed varying levels of investment in
five critical plantation management strategies (Table 9). 96% cleaned weeds from their
plantation at least once. Participants cleaned with hoes, machetes, and glyphosate
herbicide and did so an average of 1.79 times a year. Pruning was also common, with
71% of participants using a saw, machete, or pruning shears to prune an average of 2.59
times over the life of the plantation. Fertilizing (not including initial fertilization at
planting) with cow manure or chemical amendments occurred among fewer
participants (38%) and less frequently (an average of 1.63 times over the life of the
plantation). 20% of participants treated their plantation with pesticide at least once and
only 11% thinned – usually doing so only once during the life of the plantation.
The vast majority of participants reported that their eucalyptus trees were
“healthy.” The most common pest and disease complaints were: ants, grasshoppers,
and putative fungal infections. 16% of participants reported that livestock damaged
their plants, usually as a result of the accidental entry of their own or neighbors’ cows
into the plantation. Participants practicing silvopastoralism were usually not among
52 those reporting animal damage; they tended to wait to introduce cows into their
plantations until their eucalyptus were “big” (exceeding two meters in height).
Rotation and Harvesting. The study population included both participants who
had harvested their eucalyptus plantation (33%) and those who had not. Among those
who had harvested their plantation (or one of multiple plantations), two-thirds had
coppiced,11 either intentionally or unintentionally, allowing stumps to regenerate. Only
three out of ten participants expected to harvest from their plantation once it reached a
specific age. The mean rotation age these smallholders envisioned was nine years – an
expectation compatible with both observed and recommended values for eucalyptus
production for fuelwood or industrial wood in the region (Lamprecht, 1989; Cubbage et
al., 2010). Clearcutting and plans to clearcut were relatively rare. More frequently,
participants or eucalyptus lumber buyers would selectively harvest valuable trees,
leaving behind those with poor form or small diameter.
Agroforestry. Despite the surveyed disadvantages of eucalyptus as an
agroforestry species, a full 73% of participants employed taungya, silvopastoralism, or
other agroforestry systems in the establishment or maintenance of their eucalyptus
plantations (Table 10). The most common associations were eucalyptus with corn (22%),
pasture grasses such as Brachiaria brizantha (A. Rich.) Stapf (13%), or cassava (11%).
Though some farmers planted crops next to or within grown eucalyptus plantations –
especially in the case of windbreaks – the taungya practice of planting annual crops for
only the first two years of eucalyptus growth was more common. Participants with
11 A coppice is “a forest crop raised from shoots produced from the cut stumps (called stools) of the previous crop” (Evans and Turnbull, 2004). Management through coppicing is advantageous in that regeneration occurs without the economic, temporal, and labor costs of obtaining new propagules, planting them, and taking care of them. Shoots sprout from old stumps for free and immediately take advantage of an extant root system. However, the quality of regenerating shoots is different than that of the original managed stem. Without intensive management, one stool can sprout many small-diameter, low-quality shoots, which are suitable only as poles or firewood.
53 widely spaced plantations often reported the intention of planting B. brizantha and then
introducing cows into the silvopastoral combination.
Economic Context
Household Economies. Study participants lived in households with a mean of
5.4 inhabitants situated on holdings of a median of 10 ha of land. Although land
ownership among participants ranged from only half a hectare to 110 hectares, with a
mean value of 17.7 ha, some of the larger reported values represent de facto use of
untitled lands by a few families who are, in reality, smallholders. Participants devoted
an average of 4.6 ha to row and tree crop fields, with 91% participating in subsistence
farming and 64% participating in cash cropping. The 73% who owned cattle devoted an
average of 5.7 ha to pasture and corrals. Mean coverage of remaining “natural forest”
on participants’ land was 4.4 ha (Table 11).
Land use, however, was not homogenous across the study population.
Participants did not own equivalent amounts of land (Χ2 = 16.17, p = .001) and intact
forest (Χ2 = 12.94, p = .005) or devote equivalent amounts of land to cattle ranching (Χ2 =
12.82, p = .005) across regions. Mean land ownership (or, as noted above, de facto
appropriation) was highest among participants in Caazapá (26.7 ha), intermediate in
Itapúa (11.8 ha) and San Pedro (11.1 ha), and lowest in Cordillera (3.0 ha). The
Caazapeñan participants also owned more forested land and devoted more land to
cattle ranching than participants in other departments. Forested land holdings were
especially limited – an average of a hectare or less – in Cordillera and San Pedro and in
Caazapá village A and Itapúa village H, representing high local and regional rates of
deforestation (Table 11). Participants in the other Caazapá and Itapúa villages, however,
reported higher ownership of forested land, suggesting that these communities may be
located at or beyond the rapidly diminishing agricultural frontier in the two
departments. These findings are consistent with the characters of the four departments.
Cordillera and San Pedro are closer to Asunción and the country’s historical core of
54 settlement. The other two departments are more rural, though Itapúa does have some
dense urban zones.
Motives for Adoption. Though realized benefits often diverged from original
intent for adoption, study participants started planting eucalyptus for a variety of
reported reasons (Table 12). The most common motivations were wood production for:
commercial sale (69%), firewood (49%), general home use (40%), board construction
(29%), other construction needs such as braces and stakes (29%), and the replacement of
diminishing natural wood sources (20%). Non-timber benefits associated with
eucalyptus were less frequent motivators of adoption. Relatively fewer participants
planted eucalyptus to serve as a windbreak (9%), to dry out wetlands (7%), for
medicinal use of its leaves (7%), or to serve as shade (2%).
These varying motivations for planting eucalyptus were, in some cases, not
homogenous among regions (Table 12). Though only significant at a type-one error rate
of 10%, there was possible inequality among interest in commercialization of
plantations, with every participant in Caazapá interested in selling wood from a
eucalyptus plantation compared to 50% in Itapúa and only 38% in San Pedro. None of
the participants living in Cordillera adopted eucalyptus plantation forestry in order to
sell timber. However, the role of eucalyptus as a tool to dry out wet meadows was only
mentioned in Cordillera. This may be an artifact resulting from the location of village B
on both sides of a valley with a large, common wet meadow bifurcating the community.
Similarly, half of the participants in village E noted use of eucalyptus wood as fuel in
the local tobacco enterprise as a motivation for planting since they were organized to
plant eucalyptus through the company itself.
Participation in a Committee or Development Project. The degree to which
participants planted eucalyptus in conjunction with a farmers´ committee or a
development organization varied widely and significantly (Table 13) among villages
and regions. In villages A and B, all participants planted eucalyptus independent of any
55 such collaborative effort, while in both communities in Itapúa (villages G and H), every
participant except one reported being encouraged or helped to plant eucalyptus
through partnership with a community group, NGO, or the government. The purposes
and identities of partner organizations varied among communities.
Participants in four communities (A, C, D, and G) planted their eucalyptus with
assistance obtained through membership in a farmers’ committee. In villages C and G,
international NGOs partnered with or formed local committees in order to promote
rural development. In village C, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ; formerly Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit
[GTZ], the German, publically-owned development corporation) worked with a
farmers’ committee to provide members with eucalyptus seedlings and extension.
Three of the five participants in the village obtained their eucalyptus through a grant
from GIZ. In village G, a Japanese development agency formed a farmers’ committee
and, in some cases, promoted eucalyptus plantation forestry through this group.
Participants were uncertain about the identity of the NGO and some also reported that
DEAG was a partner in the project. This was the case in villages A and D, where DEAG
agents worked with local committees to promote eucalyptus plantation forestry.
NGOs, commercial firms, and the Paraguayan government also worked directly
with participants to promote eucalyptus plantation forestry. The Spanish development
NGO Acción Contra El Hambre (“Action Against Hunger”) helped one participant in
village C to adopt eucalyptus forestry. In village E, five of the six interviewed
participants adopted eucalyptus through partnership with the local tobacco-roasting
enterprise. The managers of the “tabacalera” encouraged them to plant eucalyptus to
sell back to the company to use as fuelwood for the tobacco roasting process.
Frequently, technicians facilitated the purchase of seedlings and provided advice
regarding planting and management. Some participants who planted eucalyptus
through partnership with the local tabacalera had since adopted different objectives for
56 their plantations, including subsistence use and sale to other commercial buyers, such
as fruit carton makers.12 In village F, a commercial charcoal producer was ordered by
agents of SEAM to plant eucalyptus – not as a future source of charcoal, but as
mitigation for deforestation that had already occurred on his land. In village G, the joint
Japanese-Paraguayan project noted above helped all six participants to plant
eucalyptus, sometimes through a farmers’ committee and sometimes through
individualized extension. In village H, one participant reported receiving assistance
through a DEAG project. Two participants in the village planted eucalyptus through a
development/reforestation project promulgated by the Paraguayan conservation NGO
Pro Cosara. Finally, an additional two participants in village H were assisted by
Trociuk, a Paraguayan agro-industrial firm. These farmers cultivated citrus orchards
and had signed contracts to sell their produce to Trociuk, which helped them to plant
eucalyptus windbreaks around their fields to protect the fruit.
Extension Realized and Desired. Whether through participation in a committee-
or agency-led project or simply as a result of household-based extension, 62% of
participants reported that they benefitted from some technical advice in adopting
eucalyptus plantation forestry. An additional 14% planted eucalyptus through
collaboration with a neighbor or extended family member. The remaining 24% of
participants established their plantations without technical support. This proportion
was only non-uniform among departments at the 10% level of type-one error, but
inspection of the data shows access to extension to be much less common in the
participants living in Caazapà and universal among participants in Itapùa (Table 14).
Qualitative analysis of participant commentary on technical extension received
shows that actual extension usually focused heavily on the planting of eucalyptus, and
12 Fruit (e.g. banana, pineapple, etc.) production was especially important to the economy of Village E. Eucalyptus stakes were sometimes used to construct fruit cartons, which were then filled and shipped to Asunción or other urban markets.
57 very little on post-establishment management. Forestry technicians (“técnicos” or
“ingenieros”) frequently brought seedlings or seeds or facilitated the purchase of
seedlings; gave advice on optimal planting distances and plant arrangement; and
suggested that participants fertilize their fields or spray for insects. Though some also
recommended weed cleaning, pruning, and fertilization regimes, very few engaged in
monitoring or post-establishment extension visits. Those who did often shaped
participant behavior:
“That [forestry] engineer taught us many things. Because if you have a technical lesson, you learn a lot. He gave us the idea and taught us so that our idea could work. As a result of one person, sometimes things turn out well for us.” (Participant A1)
It became clear to me that specific agents could also drive widespread
local adoption of eucalyptus. Many participants in village C were directly or
indirectly convinced to plant eucalyptus through the efforts of Porfirio Duarte,
an agricultural engineer in the San Juan Nepomuceno office of DEAG. Similarly,
many participants in villages C and D planted eucalyptus because they had been
trained at the Tapyta plantation or were educated informally in plantation
establishment by Tapyta employees.
Participants reported that current extension efforts fell short in a variety of
ways. They expressed interest in improved provision both of technical assistance
and material support. Technical topics with which participants required help
were: the production of seedlings from seed through “viveros,” selection of
appropriate species of eucalyptus for their sites, sustainable management of
plantation soils, post-establishment management (e.g. cleaning, thinning,
pruning, etc.), and protection of plants against pests and diseases. One
participant also noted the importance of adequate education about the possible
negative effects of eucalyptus on adjacent plants:
58
Fig. 7. Participant H6 was encouraged to plant a eucalyptus windbreak in close proximity to two rows of grafted orange trees. He reported that orange yield in these lines was reduced by interaction with the windbreak.
“But don’t use it as a windbreak. You can’t fix it. Over there, over there, my two lines of oranges, sadly, don’t do well. If the technician came and he said ‘please don’t plant eucalyptus as a windbreak,’…we shouldn’t plant it with other important plants that serve us at least, the forest or the eucalyptus trees.” (Participant H6)
In this case, participant H6 had been encouraged to plant eucalyptus as a windbreak
but had not been warned about its potential allelopathic and competitive effects. He
planted the eucalyptus close to his valuable grafted orange grove and found that
adjacent lines of trees produced very little
fruit after the eucalyptus reached a few
years of age (Fig. 7). Another participant
also noted that he would plant more
eucalyptus if government agents helped him
get legal titles to his land, reducing the risk
of investing in afforestation.
Some participants requested material,
rather than technical assistance. In cases
where specific supplies, such as eucalyptus
seedlings and seeds, chemical fertilizers, and
pruning shears or saws, were scarce,
smallholders suggested that government
agencies or NGOs could provide them for
free. Several participants also suggested that
cash support from these agencies could help
them to buy fencing materials to keep animals out of plantations and to pay day
laborers to cut weeds in the plantations and to prune the trees. Yet not all participants
expressed the need or desire for material support:
59
“It’s not that they should give away money, but that they should give away technical assistance.” (Participant H5)
Finally, participants offered some suggestions of how extensionists could
improve the quality of their work. Some could not afford hiring private consultants to
help them establish plantations and reiterated the necessity of free, public or NGO-
based extension. Others expressed frustration with public extension agents from DEAG
and INFONA:
“The technicians, for example from DEAG, just stay in their offices. Their place is on the radio and some hear and others don’t hear. So, because of that, there is a lack of DEAG technicians working among the peasants.” (Participant C2)
The villages included in the study population varied widely in their proximity to
regional extension offices. In some cases, extensionists made frequent visits to
participants’ fields and plantations. In others, technical extension was very rare.
Participants’ access to extension depended on their proximity to regional
DEAG/INFONA offices, the prevalence of farmers’ committees and other groups that
could advocate for attention, and the personal qualities of local extensionists. Another
shortcoming that participants noted was failure to follow-up on projects. In many cases,
perhaps due to changes in funding and the “completion” of development projects,
public and private extensionists helped participants to plant eucalyptus but were not
available to help them manage their new plantations. One participant lamented that
technicians:
“made us plant and then 2 years came and they left us. It was all over for nothing. We more or less went from there and this was so-so.” (Participant G1)
Some of the topics about which participants sought more information – plant
protection, cleaning, thinning, and pruning – were precisely those that are most
relevant during the years following plantation establishment.
60 Propagule Procurement. During the study period, I encountered typical
containerized propagules of E. grandis for sale for 500-600 Guaranìes13 each, assuming
that the buyer paid for transport from the vivero. Prices were generally cheaper if the
buyer did not demand an official receipt of purchase (“boleto legal”), reflecting the
lower cost of conducting business informally, and without vivero operators paying the
national value-added tax. In some regions, cloned (“clonado”) eucalyptus produced
through vegetative propagation had just begun to appear on the market, generally
selling for between 2000-2500 Guaranìes each. A few wealthier study participants had
begun investing in this fast-growing, high-yield propagule class, but the majority
purchased typical, seed-grown, containerized seedlings. The mean price of close to 700
Guaranìes paid by participants for seedlings reflects this pattern (Table 15).
Globally, 47% of study participants purchased their seedlings, rather than
producing them independently or receiving them as gifts. This proportion was not
distributed equally across regions (Table 15). Again, this statistic reflects the fact that in
some villages, all or some study participants planted eucalyptus through partnership
with a committee or development agency that paid for all costs associated with
obtaining the plants.
Plantation Costs and Income. Though an original goal of this study was to
provide a budget detailing expenditures and income associated with the eucalyptus
plantation of each participant, I found that only 13 participants had a sense of how
much money they had spent on or earned from their plantations. These estimates,
presented in Table 16, were themselves provisional and probably not terribly precise.
Most participants had yet to earn any income from their plantations: they had not yet
harvested logs from them and did not sell thinned trees or gathered or coppiced
13 As of 21 May 2012, 1 USD = 4355 Guaraníes. Between the study period and the present, the Guaraní has depreciated against the dollar. At points in August 2011, the exchange rate dropped as low as 1 USD = 3750 Guaraníes.
61 firewood or posts. Some participants had already harvested and sold logs from their
plantations. In cases where they had initially received seedlings through a committee or
development project, the income from these sales was realized as profit. In all cases of
log sale, proceeds offset costs of establishing and managing the plantation, producing
net profit. Net losses only occurred in cases where log harvest had not yet occurred.
In cases where plants were not gifts from either development projects or friends,
participants had to spend money to purchase seedlings and, occasionally, to have them
transported from a vivero to the plantation site. Some participants who produced their
own seedlings from seed had to buy containers to hold seedlings until they were large
enough to be outplanted. 32% of participants had to construct fencing around their new
plantations to keep animals from entering. Among these smallholders, plantation
establishment costs included those stemming from posts, barbed wire, and labor when
help was required to dig post holes. A couple of families also experimented with
electrified fencing, which entailed purchasing a small motor. Those participants who
fertilized their fields with chemical fertilizers and who applied glyphosate or pesticides
also had to purchase these inputs. Finally, some families hired day laborers to help
clean, prune, or spray plantations in a timely manner.
42% of participants who had thought about how they would sell eucalyptus
products anticipated or had already carried out a stumpage sale (Table 18). In many
cases, a potential buyer would enter a rural community searching for logs or poles; pay
a smallholder family by the log, cartload, cubic meter, or ton; and then fell the most
desirable trees in a plantation with a chainsaw and remove them from the plantation.
Because most participants did not have access to motor vehicles and lived kilometers
away from major sawmills, it was rare for them to fell logs independently and seek out
buyers. These limitations contributed to a generally passive attitude among potential
eucalyptus producers regarding the sale of products from their plantations.
62 Plantation Products. Participants mentioned a variety of either planned or
realized domestic and commercial uses for eucalyptus (Table 17). Because it was
difficult to distinguish between realized versus only hypothetical use or sale of these
products, I have avoided statistical analysis and merely present lists of products that
participants mentioned. The majority of participants either did use or planned to use
eucalyptus products in their homes. Many participants gathered fallen eucalyptus
branches to serve as firewood and several had constructed all or part of their homes
entirely from eucalyptus boards. Small-diameter eucalyptus staves, runners, and braces
were also frequently incorporated into traditional thatched roofs. Generally, domestic
products came from fallen eucalyptus branches or from small-diameter, coppiced stems
rather than from felled logs, which were more frequently saved for commercialization.
Many participants reported that they either had sold or anticipated selling
eucalyptus logs. In areas close to veneer factories, it was anticipated that these logs
would be used to produce veneer and, ultimately, plywood. Similarly, participants
living in proximity to yerba mate, tobacco, or charcoal factories either sold or
anticipated selling their wood to these industries as industrial firewood. In fewer cases,
participants mentioned the sale of eucalyptus poles, branches, or logs to neighbors as
domestic firewood. Though no participants had actually made charcoal out of
eucalyptus, some did discuss the possibility of doing so.
Market Perceptions. Most (74%) study participants interested in selling
eucalyptus wood expressed optimism regarding the local market, with only 16%
reporting qualified or low confidence in the market and 11% unsure about
opportunities to sell wood from their plantation. Participant A4’s positive, though
qualified view, was a common one:
“In my opinion, it is very strong now, today, I don’t know how it will be in the future. But, everyone thinks it’s going to go on getting better, each time better, hopefully.”
63
Many participants were able to form inferences about the local eucalyptus
market by observing neighbors selling eucalyptus. In villages C and D, the commercial
success of the Tapyta plantation occasioned optimism about smallholder sale
opportunities:
“In your opinion, is the market for eucalyptus wood strong in this region? 14
We don’t know at all. We will produce and have something good perhaps because Tapyta over there fells a lot and you never hear that anything is left over. They use eucalyptus for everything.” (Participant D6)
Negative participant attitudes about the eucalyptus wood market generally
stemmed from uncertainty and from the perception that, in a buyer’s market, they
would get taken advantage of:
“In your opinion, is the market for eucalyptus wood good in this area? For example, if you seek a buyer, will you find one?
Yes. There is one. But one thing, buyers are always shameless and don’t want to pay much for your stuff, for this plant, now.
They want to screw you?
Yes. They don’t want the producer to earn anything, they want you to lose.” (Participant C2)
Uncertainty characterized not only participants’ evaluations of the strength of
the eucalyptus wood market, but also their ability to forecast potential plantation
income. Very few participants could estimate the going price offered for a cubic meter
of eucalyptus lumber in their region. The average value, among those who could
estimate it, was 25,833 Guaranìes.
14 Bolded text in quoted interviews corresponds to my questions and statements. Standard text corresponds to participant commentary.
64
Market perceptions may have been related to participants’ physical distance
from a sawmill or other commercial buyer of eucalyptus wood. This distance, which
was, unsurprisingly, not statistically uniform among departments (Χ2 = 16.54, p < .001),
was very high – close to 76 km – in Itapùa and appreciably lower in other departments
(Table 18). Larger distances between plantations and buyers did not, however, appear
to be a substantial barrier to log sales in the department. Several participants in Itapùa
had successfully sold wood from their plantations.
Environmental Context
Wood Use. I asked participants to rate the scarcity of firewood, post wood, and
construction-quality wood in their home regions. These three types of products were
perceived as scarce by 28%, 41%, and 51% of the study participants, respectively,
without significant partitioning among regions (Table 19). These perceptions suggest
the tendency for high-quality wood resources to be exhausted first: the perceived
scarcity of firewood, which can be made from a variety of low- and high-quality
sources, is much lower than the perceived scarcity of construction wood, which comes
from large-diameter logs of a few species.
I also spoke with participants about perceived prices of firewood, posts, and
charcoal in their regions (Table 19). Limited department-level heterogeneity in the cost
of three wood products suggests differential degrees of wood scarcity among regions in
Eastern Paraguay. Kruskal-Wallis tests showed departments to be distinct in mean
prices of posts (Χ2 = 6.71, p = .082), firewood (Χ2 = 9.42, p = .024), and charcoal (Χ2 = 10.56,
p = .014). In each case, significant heterogeneity among departments was driven by the
same dynamic: prices for posts, firewood, and charcoal were very high in Itapúa and
very low in Caazapá (Table 18). Tukey tests partitioned these two departments from
one another for each wood product. Prices in San Pedro and Cordillera were
intermediate in each case, though for posts, low prices in Cordillera caused the
department to group with Caazapá, but not Itapúa. Though there were not significant
65 differences among the departments when I compared the proportions of participants
directly reporting scarcity, consistently structured differences in wood product prices
suggest that wood may be more scarce in Itapúa, less scarce in Caazapá, and of
intermediate abundance in the other two departments. These findings are in agreement
with my own anecdotal observations and with significant differences in forested land
holdings among the departments (Table 11).
96% of respondents used firewood to cook as opposed to gas stoves, which were
used by only 16% of the surveyed families. Most participants also gathered firewood
(87%) and post wood (82%) from their own land and used purchased charcoal on
occasion (84%), generally to cook barbeque (“asado”). No participants used charcoal as
a primary source of fuel.
Eucalyptus was not heavily used for posts (4% of participants), but was used
sometimes for firewood (22%) and construction (10%). Though 9% of participants made
Eucalyptus Plantation
Natural Forest
Cattle Pasture
Cash Crops
Subsistence Crops
Yard
Fallow
Wet Meadow
Replanted or Coppiced
Eucalyptus Plantation
9%
5%
9%
36%
23%
18%
4%
76%
8%
12%
Fig. 8. Mean frequencies among participants of actual land-use before (red) and predicted land-use after (blue) the harvest of the current eucalyptus plantation. Arrow sizes are scaled to represent relative frequencies.
66 their own charcoal, none of them had used eucalyptus wood to produce charcoal.
Several noted that eucalyptus produced low-quality, light, or smoky charcoal.
Eucalyptus and Land-use. I discussed land-use history and preferences with
study participants in order to situate their eucalyptus plantations within networks of
realized and predicted land-use decisions (Fig. 8; Table 20) and of more/most valued
land-use classes (Fig. 9; Table 21). Most participants replaced subsistence row crops
(36%), cattle pasture (23%), or cash crops (18%) in order to establish their eucalyptus
plantations, although some other conversion patterns did occur in a few cases (Table
20). No study participants reported converting natural forest to eucalyptus and only 5%
reported converting natural ecosystems (wet meadows in village B) to eucalyptus
plantations. Three-quarters of participants intended to either coppice their current
plantations and let them sprout again or to replant eucalyptus after harvesting (Table
Which is more valuable: a hectare of natural forest or of eucalyptus plantation?
Which is most valuable: a hectare of cash crops, of cattle pasture, or of eucalyptus plantation?
How would you use this land if you didn’t have a eucalyptus plantation here?
Forest > Eucalyptus Plantation 57% 43%
Eucalyptus Plantation 52%> Cattle Pasture 27%> Cash Crops 21%
Cattle Pasture 34%> Subsistence Crops 25%> Cash Crops 22%> Fallow 13%> Forest or Woodlot 6%
Fig. 9. Mean frequencies among participants of land-use valuations.
67 21). Others (Fig. 8) predicted that they would establish cattle pasture (12%) or
subsistence row crops (8%) or allow for natural forest regeneration (4%).
During participant interviews, I asked three questions designed to elicit
responses related to valuation of eucalyptus plantations relative to other land uses. My
request – that participants rank eucalyptus against natural forest and then against both
cattle pasture and cash crops in terms of profitability or potential as an investment –
provided for an exploration of economic evaluation. 57% of respondents viewed
natural forest as more valuable than eucalyptus plantations (Fig. 9; Table 21). However,
many noted that natural forest was scarce and of low quality and that remaining
fragments were small and had been stripped of valuable trees. For these participants,
the profitability of high-quality, large tracts of natural forest was purely speculative.
When asked to compare eucalyptus to cash cropping and cattle ranching – the two
other dominant economic activities among households in the study population –
participants viewed eucalyptus as most valuable (52%) relative to cattle (27%) and cash
crops (21%). This pattern is somewhat surprising, given that the study population
consisted exclusively of households already invested in eucalyptus plantation forestry.
The substantial minority opinion that land devoted to cattle ranching and/or cash crop
production was more valuable than a eucalyptus plantation of the same size may speak
to disillusionment with the practice or to the competitiveness of all three forms of land-
use in the study region.
When asked if they wanted to expand or ultimately replant their eucalyptus
plantations, 80% of participants answered affirmatively, suggesting that the majority
was at least content with the benefits derived from current plantations (Table 21).
Indeed, many participants were exceedingly optimistic about eucalyptus forestry.
Several proclaimed, “ahayhu la eucalipto” (“I love eucalyptus”) during interviews. The
fairly common intention among participants to perpetuate or expand existing
plantations corroborates this enthusiasm.
68 None of the participant land-use preferences or attitudes about eucalyptus
relative to other forms of land use were partitioned regionally.
Other tree crops. Half of participants reported planting other tree species in
association with their eucalyptus. Those doing so planted a mean of 1.83 other tree
species with eucalyptus, including a variety of natives such as yvyra pyta (Peltophorum
dubium [Sprengel] Taubert), cedro (Cedrela fissilis Vell.), lapacho (Tabebuia Gomes sp.),
inga (Inga uruguensis Hook. & Am.), kurupa’y (Anadenanthera colubrina [Vell.] Brenan
and Parapiptadenia rigida [Benth.] Brenan), urunde’y mi (Astronium urundeuva [Allemão]
Engl.), and laurel hu (Nectandra angustifolia [Schrader] Nees & Mart. ex Nees) (Lopez et
al., 2002) and exotics, such as cedro australiano (Toona ciliata M. Roem.), various pines
(Pinus L.), and grevillea (Grevillea robusta A. Cunn. ex R.Br.). The species most
commonly planted alongside eucalyptus (11% of participants) was the popular exotic
paraiso (Melia azedarach L.). Though not as fast-growing as eucalyptus, paraiso can,
according to respondents who planted it, generally hold its own when the two species
are planted together. Paraiso wood is valued for its use in furniture-making and board
construction. Some study participants also planted commercialized fruit tree crops
within or alongside eucalyptus plantations: 4% of respondents planted citrus trees and
4% planted banana.
Perceptions of Deforestation. Though, as noted above, study participants had
mixed perceptions of the scarcity of wood in their communities. 93% of participants
responding to questions about loss of natural forest thought that deforestation was a
problem in their region. The following comment about deforestation was typical:
“Very soon, it will be a bigger problem because we are felling so much right now. Before, we had so much forest and we knew well that it was a problem, but I don’t know, planting eucalyptus reforests, but they always go deforesting. I don’t know what, what will happen after that.” (Participant D6)
69 Yet I also encountered awareness of the importance of conservation. Many families had
stopped aggressively harvesting their remaining natural forest:
“People fell all of the forest and some don’t have any more forest. And we have forest that we don’t really touch. Because the natural forest is disappearing.” (Participant E4)
Some participants, however, placed the blame for deforestation with specific local or
regional agents rather than with themselves and their neighbors. This farmer associated
deforestation with the advent of mechanized agriculture:
“Here, in the area of San Juan, have you noticed that deforestation is a problem?
I think that in all areas, it is a problem. Changes in agricultural machinery are precursors of massive deforestation.” (Participant A4)
Another participant refuted the premise that smallholders deforest their land to
establish plantations or row crops:
“In your opinion, because you have natural forest, would you fell that to plant more eucalyptus or not?
…we don’t fell it anymore because it does good things for our earth.” (Participant A2)
Several participants echoed A2’s contention that, given the visible scarcity of forested
land, smallholders had reduced the degree to which they converted forested lands. This
finding supports Duraiappah’s (1998) contentions that rural smallholder-mediated
deforestation is often not the result of small farmers’ lack of environmental awareness
or stewardship, but stems from larger economic and political forces.
94% of those reporting that deforestation was a problem thought that planting
eucalyptus should be considered reforestation. This widespread acceptance of
eucalyptus afforestation as reforestation is understandable, given governmental
promotion of eucalyptus plantations as a form of compliance with Law 536/95, the
70 national reforestation policy. One participant spoke to the recent changes in forestry
laws:
“If you want to chop down a forest, you need to apply, you need to communicate with the forestry office. You need to pay a tax, the municipality charges it. You have permission then, to touch a tree in your forest. Before, the people, we just felled it. Now, they fine you just for felling it.” (Participant A1)
These recent advances were beginning to affect the promotion of eucalyptus plantation
forestry during the study period, even though, for Participant A1 and most other study
participants, enforcement of municipal control of deforestation was merely theoretical.
Only one participant (a charcoal producer) reported that he had been compelled to pay
fines and plant trees to compensate for deforestation. His eucalyptus plantation had
been established as a form of mitigation.
However, the acceptance of eucalyptus as a form of reforestation was not
ubiquitous. One participant complained:
“…I don’t like how the people plant the eucalyptus and how is that like reforestation, because they fell it and they sell it all again, and they plant again?” (Participant D11)
Paraguayan forest policy is still in its infancy, with most laws originating fewer than 20
years ago. Smallholder awareness of, much less compliance with, these laws is limited
and ambiguous in rural areas. Participants A1 and D11’s comments are suggestive of
this underlying reality of Paraguayan forest policy: good intentions and stringent laws
frequently do not translate to meaningful conservation or sustainable development on
the ground.
Attitudes regarding deforestation and eucalyptus-as-reforestation were not
significantly heterogeneous among departments.
Perceptions of Euclayptus Nativeness. Though many study participants did not
comprehend the idea of species “nativeness” or were unsure about whether or not
71 eucalyptus is native to Paraguay, 64% of those responding confidently (n = 28) believed
that eucalyptus is a native species. None, without prompting, identified it as originating
in Australia. Semantic treatment, however, revealed ambivalence over the degree to
which participants viewed eucalyptus as a “natural” or Paraguayan species.
Participants frequently used the term “yvyra” (“tree” or “wood”) to refer to natural
forest or to native tree species. Eucalyptus, however, was almost never referred to as
“yvyra”; rather, eucalyptus was generally described as simply “eucalipto”
(“eucalyptus”). Mentions of “yvyrakuùera” (“trees”) generally pertained to native
species or natural forest stands. Similarly, “kaaguy,” the term for “forest,” was not
applied to eucalyptus plantations, which were termed either “eucalipto” or
“eucaliptoty” (“eucalyptus plantation”).
Participants provided mixed and sometimes contradictory responses when asked
if eucalyptus “replaced” native wood or if eucalyptus plantations replaced native
forests. Some participants described eucalyptus as “better,” while others preferred
native forest.
The most common enumerated advantages of eucalyptus included: higher
economic value, faster growth rates, and resistance to rot. One participant exclaimed:
“Yes, It’s better. Because it grows up completely. It is worthy. It is more hard-working. Because it doesn’t get termites. Because it doesn’t get white rot. Not anything. And our natural woods want to get termites and white rot.” (Participant B1)
Some participants preferred eucalyptus conditionally claiming that because natural
forest in their regions had been high-graded, eucalyptus plantations were more
valuable for sale:
“My understanding is that it is better than the forest. Because the forest, in this day, is without much value when it comes to price, because there are just green trees, right? [On eucalyptus]…Now, the big trees if you fell one, are worth a lot. And fallen branches are worthwhile as firewood.” (Participant G3)
72 Many participants also valued eucalyptus wood for its use in the home (as detailed
below), and a number specifically noted that it was suitable as firewood, though this
perception was not universal.
Plenty of participants were critical of eucalyptus, both from an ecological and a
utilitarian perspective. They generally did not consider eucalyptus to be equivalent to
“natural forest” species:
“We don’t know anything because natural forest is a thing for life, it is an untouchable thing. But for necessity, we turn to the eucalyptus.” (Participant D6)
In contradistinction to the claims that eucalyptus is more economically valuable, some
participants cited the high prices offered for wood of various native forest species as
evidence that native species are more economically valuable than eucalyptus. Others
stated that eucalyptus made bad firewood or charcoal and that it was not hard enough
for some applications. Some participants reported a preference for natural forest to
eucalyptus plantations because of the low relative diversity of plantations:
“In my opinion, [eucalyptus] doesn’t replace [native forest]. Because it’s just one kind. But the forest has many classes. And the forest has many kinds of trees. It doesn’t replace it, in my opinion. Because it’s just eucalyptus.” (Participant A2)
This perception was fairly common: participants noted that eucalyptus
plantations are monocultures that only provide eucalyptus timber, while natural
forests have rich species diversity and provide many different kinds of wood.
Perceptions of Eucalyptus Externalities. In each interview conducted, I asked
study participants if they had personally experienced two of the more commonly
reported eucalyptus externalities: depletion of soil moisture and inhibition of
neighboring plant growth. 45% of participants reported that their plantations had made
the surrounding soil drier and 47% reported that their crops or trees were inhibited or
73 out-competed by adjacent eucalyptus plantations (Table 22). Reporting of these effects
was not significantly different among departments.
Several themes emerged in participant commentary on the “drying” effect of
eucalyptus. Though only a handful of families reported planting eucalyptus to dry out
wetlands, many were aware that eucalyptus could have this effect:
“And the engineer said to us, ‘here you can’t walk because it’s all muddy and the earth is soft and runs away. And so plant them so that they will dry it out.’ And it’s the truth, truly. It was just marsh and then it dried it right out.” (Participant B1)
Some were skeptical of the desirability of using eucalyptus as a tool for ecological engineering:
“That is what an engineer who came to us said. He was a concession holder and he said to us about the topic of eucalyptus. He said, ‘the majority of people want to plant eucalyptus in marshes.’
Yes.
And it isn’t worth it to plant eucalyptus in marshes. You should plant it in high places. And the marshes should stay as they are, we should conserve that.” (Participant D10)
Among the participants who reported that their eucalyptus plantations had dried out
nearby soil, one consistent theme was an affected zone of 5-30 m:
“Do other plants next to the eucalyptus grow smaller or grow normally?
It dries things out.
It dries them? Have you seen this?
Over there, before, I planted next to it and it liquidated everything 15 meters away from it.
Really?
It was all small.
And beans, how did they grow?
74
It made them small. It made their central stems all small. It sucked from far away. But passing 15 meters, it was all fine again.” (Participant G3)
Some participants reported that crops did not grow at all near eucalyptus, while others,
like the farmer above, reported that crops growing near eucalyptus were stunted. In
some cases, these effects were not manifested until one to three years after the
eucalyptus was planted. Generally, participants referred to eucalyptus as “haku”
(“hot”) or as a tree that “oipytese la y” (“wants to suck up the water”). These
designations, frequently applied to corn and other water-consumptive crops, helped
participants to situate the exotic eucalypts within traditional knowledge about agro-
ecological interactions.
Complaints about excessive water use were often tied into commentary on the
competitive or allelopathic qualities of eucalyptus when grown in conjunction with
other row and tree crops. Again, the concept of an affected zone was prominent:
“Tobacco, corn, they grow less beside it.
Beside it?
Yes, some 20 or 30 meters away, pineapple…gets all dried out. It yellows. It’s not our forest, it is something else, my friend. It produces bad results. When you put the plantation in the field.” (Participant E4)
“And in your opinion, the plants, you’ve said this about cassava, but other plants that grow beside eucalyptus, do they grow less than normal?
Yes, they grow less. I say that eucalyptus has a problem, as I see. If you plant eucalyptus and you use the earth beside it to plant cassava, beans, corn, whatever things, the soy, sunflower, wheat, then it grows really small. It only grows 50%.
And how many meters from the eucalyptus does this effect reach?
I say it reaches the shade, in this case, it’s not worth it to plant up to 10 meters from it. I don’t use them anymore. 5 to 7 meters are worthless. There, there is only eucalyptus.” (Participant H6)
75 In the former of the above two excerpts, participant E4 associated eucalyptus’s
competitive or allelopathic qualities with its status as an exotic as well as its tendency to
dry out adjacent soils. In the latter interview, participant H6 attributed eucalyptus’s
effects to shading. In one case, a participant explicitly identified the mechanism of
allelopathy in his comments:
“We don’t plant anything there, because like I said, if you plant native species among them, they out-compete them. They grow so fast. Additionally, the leaves have herbicide also, they kill them.” (Participant C2)
In this case, as in the interview with participant E4, a eucalyptus grower raised the issue
of eucalyptus’s exotic origins in discussing its environmental externalities.
Chapter 4: Discussion
Theory Testing
Do eucalyptus plantations spare natural forests? Despite the considerable
optimism of Sedjo and Botkin (1997), plantations are not a panacea for deforestation in
the developing world. Yet this case study suggests that within a study population of 45
Eastern Paraguayan smallholders, eucalyptus plantations may support the sustainable
use of natural forests through several mechanisms, as detailed below.
Plantations established within the study population did not appear to compete
with natural forest as a form of land-use. No study participants reported clearing
natural forest to plant eucalyptus and very few viewed natural forest as a possible
alternative (6%) or subsequent (4%) use of land that was currently devoted to
eucalyptus plantation forestry. Rather, participant responses suggested that the forms
of land-use replaced by eucalyptus forestry are those that themselves threaten the
existence of forested land: cash cropping and cattle ranching (Fig. 8; Table 20). Also,
participants were generally willing to distinguish between eucalyptus plantations and
76 natural forest, viewing natural forest as more valuable and, in many cases, denying the
suitability of eucalyptus as a replacement for natural forest.
Eucalyptus plantations provide wood products for home use and
commercialization that would otherwise come from natural forests. Participants
reported using eucalyptus branches as firewood and to fulfill other domestic needs,
directly substituting for wood that would otherwise be harvested from forest holdings
(Table 12; Table 17). And participants’ comments treating natural forests as having been
high-graded and without large quantities of remaining salable wood suggest that
commercialized eucalyptus may fill the market gap created by contemporary
deforestation. Because they provide substitute sources of wood for domestic and
commercial use, smallholder eucalyptus plantations may remove pressure from
remaining forest fragments.
By encouraging smallholders to value tree resources and practice silviculture and
agroforestry, the current boom in eucalyptus plantations may also indirectly promote
the conservation of natural forests. 73% of participants utilized at least one agroforestry
technique in eucalyptus cultivation. 42% of plantations were either designed as row
crop or silvopastoral agroforestry systems, windbreaks, or mixed-species plantations.
Many participants were also committed to planting native and exotic tree species, as
noted above. Half planted other tree species alongside or within eucalyptus plantations.
By dint of being a valued (Fig. 9) farm resource, eucalyptus may strengthen the
perception among study participants that trees are valuable and worthy of stewardship,
rather than inexhaustible and ubiquitous (as in Cartes, 2003).
Smallholder eucalyptus plantations observed in this study did not compete with
natural forests as a form of land-use and they may remove pressure from natural forests
and enhance participant attitudes toward sustainable agriculture and forestry practices.
Therefore, I conditionally conclude that, in the study population, eucalyptus plantations
appear to support the conservation of existing, natural forest resources.
77 Are eucalyptus plantations economical and practical? Assessment of the
plantations established by the study population reveals an array of economic profiles,
most of which appeared to meet participants’ needs. Additionally, the small-scale
cultivation of eucalyptus among the study population appears to be a practical and
realizable practice. To specifically address the matter of the economic desirability of
smallholder eucalyptus plantations established by the study population, I present three
general profiles, each one a representative of a variety of different practices and systems
that I observed in this study.
The first class of plantations consists of independently established commercial
plantations. These plantations were most common in Caazapà, where extension was
limited (Table 14), commercialization of plantation products was a common reason for
adopting eucalyptus (Table 12), and natural forest holdings were prevalent enough that
smallholders did not need to rely on plantations to meet domestic wood needs (Table
11). In this model of production, plantation owners purchase seedlings and other inputs
without external assistance. They manage plantations toward the end of log production
by maintaining lower stocking rates, pruning heavily, avoiding coppice harvesting, and
selling logs after a rotation of more than just a few years. The plantations I visited fitting
this profile were often fairly young and thus, had yet to produce income. Owners had
spent hundreds of thousands of Guaranìes on seedlings and viewed the plantations as
net losers of money in the short-term (Table 16). Yet the high demand for eucalyptus
wood and large diameters of trees I observed in the regions where commercialized
smallholder plantations dominated suggest that these plantations may prove quite
profitable at the end of a seven- to 10-year rotation.
A second plantation profile is that of the subsidized, commercialized plantation.
This group of plantations resembles the first profile, except that inputs used to establish
them were provided by the government, NGOs, or local enterprises rather than
smallholder owners themselves (Table 13). This model was most common in Itapùa and
78 San Pedro. Subsidized, commercialized plantations were distinguished by being
oriented toward production of not only logs, but also other salable products such as box
or carton staves and firewood for commercial ventures. Plantations corresponding to
this profile were often more profitable earlier in their lifespan than independent
plantations (Table 16). Often, smallholders paid no establishment costs out of their own
pockets and thus realized all income as net profit. Freed from the constraints of
recovering an investment, they could sell wood on shorter rotations and allow for
coppice regeneration for later sale or domestic use. The profitable plantations that
participants mentioned in interviews generally fit this profile.
Finally, plantations devoted either wholly or mostly to production of wood for
domestic use comprise a third plantation profile. A third of study participants had no
intent to sell products from their plantations. For most of these smallholders, their
plantations already provided some or – in a few extreme cases, all – of the wood for
domestic needs such as cooking and heating, post and fence-building, and construction
of new dwellings (Table 12; Table 17). These plantations were generally managed quite
differently than plantations fitting the first two profiles. High stocking rates, less
systematic plantation design and management, smaller plantation size, and coppicing
were all common among participants who did not intend to sell wood as a primary goal
of plantation ownership. The economic desirability of these plantations is harder to
assess. When households had to pay for seedlings or other inputs, it was unlikely that
these costs would be offset by proceeds from wood sales. Yet all households in the
study population relied on wood for some domestic needs. Thus, the provision of wood
by eucalyptus plantations represents an economic benefit.
The question of practicality of eucalyptus plantation forestry is also critical, given
the tendency of prevailing extension and technical literature to focus on large-scale
producers, as detailed in chapter 1. Interviews with the study population suggest that
eucalyptus plantation forestry can be an eminently practical form of silviculture for
79 smallholders in the study region. In cases where participants were willing to grow their
own seedlings and had access to mature seed trees, there were no commercial inputs
necessary to start a plantation. Fencing (for areas adjacent to cow pasture), herbicides,
pesticides, commercial fertilizers, and hired labor are not essential components of the
management and establishment of a eucalyptus plantation. Interested smallholders
could easily establish plantations using only labor and materials from their family farms
or by purchasing nothing more than seedlings. During the study period, 610 eucalyptus
seedlings (the number required at the mean study stocking rate to fill a plantation of
mean size) could be purchased for roughly 424,615 Guaranìes if sold at the mean price
that participants paid for seedlings. This was less than half of the price of a refrigerator,
an appliance that many participants’ families owned. The costs of establishing a
eucalyptus plantation should not be prohibitive for many smallholders. Nor should a
lack of technical training prevent adoption of eucalyptus. Even in areas where technical
extension was limited, participants were able to do a decent job of establishing and
caring for their plantations. Eucalyptus is most sensitive immediately after planting,
but, after becoming established, does not require extensive care (Lamprecht, 1989),
especially if it is being grown for fuelwood, poles, etc. rather than for sale as large-
diameter logs. Thus, eucalyptus cultivation appears to be a realizable practice for
smallholders in the study region.
Are eucalyptus plantations environmentally beneficial? My findings in this
case study suggest that it is fair to conclude that the environmental effects of eucalyptus
are, at worst, ambivalent. As noted above, eucalyptus plantation forestry does not
appear to contribute to deforestation and may take pressure off of natural forests. It
makes sense to adopt a scale-dependent approach in addressing the question of other
environmental externalities of eucalyptus plantation forestry.
At a small spatial and temporal scale, that of the individual participant’s farm
during the time between when trees reach two years of age and are harvested,
80 eucalyptus plantations have some negative environmental effects. 45% of participants
noted that eucalyptus dried out the soil and 47% reported agro-ecological effects
consistent with competition or allelopathy (Table 22). Yet these effects were limited to
zones of no more than thirty meters from the plantation, were not permanent, and can
be compared to the effects of row crops such as corn on soil moisture. And they should
hardly be considered extreme relative to the environmental effects of other agricultural
practices common among the study population such as swidden agriculture, conversion
of forests to pasture, trash burning, and widespread glyphosate use.. In fact, to
whatever extent eucalyptus plantation forestry may replace forms of land-use that
entail these practices, eucalyptus could be said to have a positive environmental effect,
if only passively.
Consideration of the relative land-use histories and preferences (Figs. 8 and 9;
Tables 20 and 21) that participants reported suggests that eucalyptus may indeed be the
lesser of environmental evils. Though one participant did complain that eucalyptus
plantations were more susceptible than natural forests to erosion, many more
participants reported that eucalyptus plantations improved the soil. It is also reasonable
to infer that, relative to cash or subsistence row cropping or the frequent burning of
pastures, which leave soils bare of vegetation for long stretches of time, eucalyptus
plantations provide more continuous vegetative cover and thus greater soil protection
than alternatives. As noted in the literature review, though eucalyptus plantations do
not mimic native forest exactly in their ecological functioning and structure, they are,
functionally and structurally, often closer to natural forests than are row crop fields and
pasture. Considered as part of a larger rural landscape (as in Freitas de Souza et al.,
2010) and the long-term management of this landscape, eucalyptus has the potential to
be a relatively sustainable form of land-use.
Thus, on a larger spatial and temporal scale, eucalyptus plantations established
among the study population are environmentally beneficial, at least relative to other
81 common land-uses. By promoting the preservation of remaining natural forest
fragments and improving ecological function and structure relative to row crops and
pasture, they approach some standards of ecologically oriented forest resource
management, though perhaps not to the same extent as natural forests and native tree
plantations.
Critical Themes
Evaluating Silvicultural Practices. Though optimal silvicultural management
varies based on multiple factors, including plantation setting, plantation design, owner
objectives, products to be harvested, etc., there are several areas in which silvicultural
practices among the study population were substandard.
Stocking rates were unintentionally low (Table 6) due to ad hoc plantation design,
post-establishment mortality, and ad hoc harvesting. “Blanking,” the process of
replanting failed propagules, could allow smallholders to use their land more efficiently
and improve eucalyptus yield, especially if carried out during the first few weeks after
establishment of the plantation (Evans and Turnbull, 2004).
Most, though not all, participants managed their plantations as even-aged
stands. However, in cases where domestic wood production is a priority, it would make
more sense for plantation owners to plant or coppice at regular intervals to ensure a
continuous flow of wood from the plantation.
Though difficult to quantify, post-establishment mortality of eucalyptus
seedlings was reported to be high. This problem could be remedied by focusing greater
attention on site preparation (e.g. weed cleaning and/or taungya) and by planting in the
colder, rainier months rather than the height of spring or summer.
82
Fig. 10. In this carefully weeded field in Village A, many eucalyptus trees have exceeded a meter in height after only five months of growth. Removal of understory competitors is critical to the establish and early growth of eucalyptus plantations.
Plantations were generally not cleared of weeds, pruned, or thinned sufficiently.
Some smallholders attributed this to lack of awareness while others were just too busy
to deal with their plantation more than a few times a year. Increasing rates of weeding
(as in Fig. 10) and pruning to several times a year and adding in at least one thinning
cycle (for commercial
or other large-
diameter applications)
would enhance
eucalyptus production
(Lamprecht, 1989; R.
Acuña, personal
communication).
Agroforestry.
Though the practice of
agroforestry is
inherently dependent
on local ecological
conditions, economic needs, and social priorities (Nair, 1993), it is possible to generalize
about the role of agroforestry in the study population. 73% of participants employed at
least one agroforestry technique. Narratives regarding these experiences and the
impacts of eucalyptus silviculture on row and tree crops provide a sense of what the
more and less productive eucalyptus agroforestry systems could be in the study region.
Taungya establishment of eucalyptus was successful for study participants. Planting
eucalyptus in established row crops saved time on site preparation, provided an extra
incentive to keep plantations free of weeds, and provided subsistence or cash crops for
two to three years or more following plantation establishment. For households that had
enough land to grow necessary food crops apart from eucalyptus after the period of
83
Fig. 11. In this plantation in Itapùa, eucalyptus (background) is planted far enough away from yerba mate (foreground) to avoid competition or allelopathy.
intercropping ended, taungya made sense. Silvopastoral systems, often with B. brizantha
grass, were also a common and functional agroforestry system employed by a number
of participants. Though some of these plantations were in the early stages of
development, silvopastoral B. brizantha/eucalyptus systems are promising, as long as
trees are spaced widely enough to allow grass to flourish. Windbreaks were also a
successful agroforestry system for two participants, although one did complain about
the negative effects of eucalyptus windbreaks on adjacent row and tree crops. These
systems appear to be an acceptable choice for smallholders as long as tree crops (e.g.
grafted citrus and yerba mate) and valuable row crops (e.g. sesame and pineapple) are
planted roughly fifteen to thirty meters (or more) away from the windbreak (Figs. 7 and
11). This buffer zone could still be available for cultivation of more tolerant row crops
such as cassava and beans.
A few participants shared stories of unsuccessful agroforestry. One farmer
attempted to establish a silvopastoral system by planting eucalyptus in an already
thriving B. brizantha pasture. The grass out-competed the trees, killing many and
stunting the rest. In the case
of silvopastoral systems, it
may be important to
establish eucalyptus before
the forage grass of choice.
Likewise, another
participant attempted to
establish a eucalyptus
plantation in a mature
banana plantation.
Eucalyptus growth was
84 compromised, perhaps due to competition, excessive shade, or the enormous amounts
of litter shed by neighboring banana trees. Again, it appears that successful eucalyptus
agroforestry, when it involves intercalation with other species, should be designed to
avoid situations in which young eucalyptus seedlings face intense competition from
already established plants. Planting in the furrows of row crops, as in taungya, is one
way to avoid this problem.
Indeed, plantation design is critical in the establishment of successful
agroforestry systems with eucalyptus. Generally, it makes sense for farmers to be
conservative about intercropping other species, especially perennials, like orange trees,
that can’t be relocated if eucalyptus-mediated effects become deleterious. And, as is
often the case in agroforestry systems (Nair, 1993), timber production may compensate
for limited productivity losses in row crops.
Role of Governments, Committees, NGOs, and Businesses. Public and private
agencies played a critical role in structuring eucalyptus plantation adoption and
extension in the study region. Even the 24% of participants who planted eucalyptus
independently may have been influenced in favor of doing so by the examples of their
neighbors and nearby industries. In many cases, a government agent (such as Porfirio
Duarte in village D), a farmer’s committee (such as the one that partnered with GIZ in
village C), an NGO (such as the Japanese aid organization active in village G), and/or a
business (such as the tabacalera in village E or Trociuk in village H) helped
smallholders to establish plantations. During the study period, through the auspices of
the Peace Corps, I assisted an additional 10 families to establish eucalyptus plantations
in village A, alone.15 Though adoption of eucalyptus plantation forestry does occur
through diffusion among neighbors (Van den Ban and Hawkins, 1996), institutions
played a major role in promoting it among the study population.
15 These households were not included as participants in this study.
85 The Paraguayan government’s main role in promoting eucalyptus plantation
forestry among the smallholders of the study population was providing technical
extension through DEAG and INFONA. Only one participant – the charcoal producer
who planted eucalyptus to mitigate deforestation – reported a linkage between his
forestry practice and policies related to forestry or reforestation. The vast majority of the
participants, all of whom all lived in rural areas and kept plantations of no more than
two hectares in size, appears to have operated underneath the radar of the small and
underfunded government agencies responsible for monitoring wood production,
timber sale, and re/afforestation.
The Paraguayan government has also indirectly promoted eucalyptus plantation
forestry as a form of land-use by historically guaranteeing formal land tenure. This
trend, which stands in contrast to the conditions typical in other parts of Latin America
(Paraguay: A Country Study, 1990), has largely benefitted large landowners, both
Paraguayan and Brazilian, who control huge tracts of farm fields and cattle ranches. Yet
titled smallholder land grants, many of them assigned during the Stroessner years were
generally respected within the study population. As a result, smallholders with titles to
their land don’t face the typical Latin American disincentive to long-term investment in
tree crops and agroforestry systems. Though problems related to land tenure do militate
against plantation forestry among Paraguay’s significant squatter and landless (“sin
tierra”) peasant populations, such households were not included in the study
population.
Environmental Awareness. My interviews of participants also shed light on
environmental attitudes within the study population. These attitudes may structure
their adoption and practice of eucalyptus plantation forestry as well as management of
forest resources more generally. While participants voiced strong concerns over
deforestation in their communities, this anxiety only occasionally translated into the
belief that wood for fuel, posts, and construction timber was scarce (Table 18).
86 Additionally, almost all (94%) participants felt that eucalyptus plantations should count
as reforestation.
There was considerable uncertainty over the origins of eucalyptus and whether
or not it is an exotic. The relatively small number of participants who could confidently
assert that eucalyptus is not a species native to Paraguay belies the fairly consistent
distinction drawn between eucalyptus and native trees in participants’ speech.
Participants showed a preference for natural forests over eucalyptus plantations and
did not relate either the experience or intent of converting the former to the latter.
Though not quite half of participants had personally experienced the negative
environmental effects of eucalyptus forestry (e.g. dry soil and allelopathy/competition;
Table 22), the majority of participants was at least aware of the possibility of these
externalities.
Geographic Structure. Quantitative analysis revealed several significant
differences among participants based on home department. Silvicultural practice varied
significantly in only two parameters: stocking rate and plantation age. These differences
appear to be driven by low stocking rates in Cordillera and high stocking rates in
Itapùa, as well as the young plantation ages observed in Caazapà (Tables 6 and 8). I also
found significant differences for a number of parameters in family and plantation
economy among departments: hectares of (total) land, cattle pasture, and forest owned
(Table 11); percentages of farmers reporting various motivations for planting
eucalyptus (Table 12); percentages of participants receiving support from a neighbor or
an institutional project in planting (Table 14); percentages of participants purchasing
seedlings (Table 15); and distance to the nearest sawmill (Table 18). Many of these
differences stem from diversity in the human geography of the departments
represented in the study population. Landowners in Caazapà, for example, generally
had larger land holdings (with more forest remaining on those lands) and were more
heavily invested in cattle ranching and commercialized eucalyptus production.
87 Firewood, charcoal, and, at the α = 10% level, post prices also varied significantly
among regions, reflecting different patterns in scarcity and demand for each resource
(Table 19).
Chapter 5: Recommendations and Future Research
Recommendations for Extensionists
Based on this case study and on my own experiences working as an extensionist
and collaborating with other extension agents from various NGOs, the Peace Corps,
and the Paraguayan government, I offer the following brief recommendations for
eucalyptus forestry extension among smallholders in the study. Extensionists should
also consult the section in Chapter 4 on “Evaluating Silvicultural Practices.”
Tailor Advice to Client Needs. As noted in this report, smallholders plant
eucalyptus for diverse reasons. As a result, extension needs will vary among
households, villages, and regions. Ideally, extensionists should work with individuals
and families. The advice and assistance they provide can then be appropriate for
specific, communicated needs. For instance, the prescribed management of a eucalyptus
firewood plantation is very different than the prescribed management for a commercial
plantation. If individual consultations are not possible, then extensionists should at least
work at the level of the committee or village. Additionally, it is fairly common for
extensionists to provide technical advice germane to large-scale producers when
working with smallholders. This approach is not effective and can lead to a mismatch
between suggested practices and realistic behavior (Byron, 2001). Also, it may be
helpful for extensionists to consider the three profiles of eucalyptus plantations offered
above and to evaluate which profile(s) might fit best in a given context. Management of
eucalyptus for domestic firewood can and should be quite different than management
88 for log lumber (Lamprecht, 1989; Evans and Turnbull, 2004) and extension should
reflect that.
Tailored advice should also extend to basic decisions such as which species of
eucalyptus smallholders should plant. I observed a great deal of uncertainty among
participants about the species of eucalyptus they were cultivating and about the
suitability of these or other species to participants’ sites and management objectives.
The most common varieties of eucalyptus cultivated and promoted in the study region
were E. grandis and E. camaldulensis. Though a few participants associated E. grandis
with upland, dry plantation sites and E. camaldulensis with moist sites and plantations in
wetlands, very few could identify or describe these species with confidence.
Extensionists could meet smallholders’ expressed needs and also improve plantation
productivity by helping interested plantation owners to choose and plant the right
species of eucalyptus.
Exploit Committees and Community Leaders. My case study shows that
committee participation and advice from neighbors was critical in spreading interest in
eucalyptus and disseminating good management practices. Extensionists working in
rural areas can improve their results in promoting good management of eucalyptus and
other forest resources by spreading technical information through committees and
focusing on community leaders who are likely to be watched and mimicked by their
neighbors. Even with improved funding, it would not be possible for DEAG, INFONA,
and other NGO or private extensionists to reach every family in rural Eastern Paraguay.
But working with committees and highly connected “opinion leaders” in rural
communities represents one opportunity to provide more effective extension (Van den
Ban and Hawkins, 1996).
Promote Agroforestry. Select agroforestry techniques – such as taungya,
silvopastoralism, and appropriately designed windbreaks – were feasible and beneficial
strategies for eucalyptus plantation forestry among the study population. Yet it is
89 common for extensionists to simply recommend that eucalyptus plantations be planted
independently of annual crop species in monospecific blocks. Promoting agroforestry
and intercalation with other tree species will enable extensionists to promote successful
eucalyptus silviculture while also working toward environmental objectives.
Be Honest about Drawbacks. A great deal of participant frustration was directed
at failed or ineffective extension efforts. One pitfall that can and should be avoided is
the promotion of eucalyptus without full disclosure of its effects on local hydrology and
associated natural and cultivated vegetation. It is perilous to encourage smallholders to
plant eucalyptus next to citrus or yerba mate trees (or vice versa), in association with
delicate crops, or near wells or springs. Not only are potential drying effects themselves
deleterious, but the perception that forestry technicians don´t care about environmental
externalities turns potential extension clients away and produces alienation. It is
possible to plant eucalyptus in a way that does not compromise other vegetation or
water resources on smallholders´ farms, but the first step is to be honest about the
genus´s tendency to suck water out of the soil and its allelopathic and competitive
nature. As noted above, some row and tree crop species are more amenable than others
to association with eucalyptus. Extensionists ought to recommend agroforestry
incorporating these species rather than ignoring potential risk to more delicate crops.
Improve Access and Equity. Access to extension was not uniform across the
study population. Participants in some villages benefitted from intense public or private
extension efforts, while others were left to figure out eucalyptus silviculture for
themselves. Especially because eucalyptus plantation forestry can be so beneficial or
harmful to local economies and ecologies, it is important to provide consistent access
and equal services to smallholders across regions and communities. This objective is
especially imperative as more and more smallholders adopt eucalyptus forestry
independently, often without much knowledge of appropriate plantation planning or
management techniques.
90 Future Research
Improved Sampling. Because of logistical limitations and the exploratory,
preliminary nature of my study, I was only able to carry out an incomplete census of
eucalyptus-growing smallholders in a non-randomly selected sample of eight
communities. Future workers addressing issues that are the same or related to those I
have addressed in this study should, if possible, sample from a larger and more
representative population of smallholders in order to improve the opportunities for
inference stemming from their research. If, in the future, INFONA is able to provide
better estimates of the extent of smallholder eucalyptus adoption at the departmental or
municipal level, stratified sampling could be used to focus data collection efforts in
important regions. Interviews with randomly selected smallholders who don’t grow
eucalyptus could also enrich this research by allowing for the characterization of
households in the study region that have not adopted eucalyptus cultivation. Finally,
investigators with access to funding and automobiles could replicate this study over a
larger and more representative range of villages and departments in Eastern Paraguay.
Direct Observations. In characterizing the economics and ecologies of
eucalyptus plantations, I relied largely on indirect participant observations of
parameters such as plant health, relative local scarcity of fuelwood, and local price for a
cubic meter of eucalyptus wood. Should other workers identify a parameter or
parameters of interest for future study, they could supplement the indirect interview
approach with direct measurements. Such research could take diverse forms, from
comparative studies of soil moisture in crop fields removed from, adjacent to, and
planted within eucalyptus stands, to more intensive economic analyses of eucalyptus
plantation forestry among smallholders. It would be especially illuminating for future
investigators to work directly with smallholders as they establish eucalyptus
plantations. Direct observation of the costs of plantation establishment could expand on
91 my ambiguous, indirect economic analysis of the costs and income associated with
smallholder eucalyptus plantation forestry.
Longitudinal Studies. Again, due to the exploratory, preliminary nature of my
study, I collected data during one visit with each participant. Future work could
address changes in eucalyptus plantation forestry within the study population over
time. Topics of interest could include assessments of dynamics in: perceptions of
eucalyptus’ desirability, management regimes, and local markets for eucalyptus wood.
Repeat visits with study participants could also facilitate the development of “grounded
theory” (sensu Saldaña, 2011) – theory developed through multiple, iterative interviews
– about perceptions of and attitudes toward eucalyptus plantations.
Causal Inference. A more focused study availing itself of random sampling
methodology, direct observation of study parameters, and a longitudinal approach
could allow for inference about causal mechanisms, rather than mere description. The
standards for internal validity and assumptions permitting statistical regression
analysis are rigorous, and could not be met in the context of the present study. Yet a
focused approach that sacrificed some breadth for the sake of depth and relied on the
initial exploration I have conducted in this report could allow for characterization of
some causal mechanisms related to eucalyptus plantation forestry in the study
population. For instance, does eucalyptus plantation establishment lead to lower rates
of deforestation or to divestment from cash agriculture or ranching? Or does eucalyptus
adoption speed up deforestation or increase investment in other types of
commercialized production? I could only address topics like these indirectly, if at all, in
the present study. But alterations such as those noted above in study design and data
collection could facilitate a deeper and more direct analysis of causal dynamics.
Generalizability
My findings in this case study only directly describe smallholder eucalyptus
plantation silviculture and its economic and environmental context within the study
92 population. However, it is possible to generalize these findings in a cautious and
limited manner. The eight villages included in the study population are typical of those
found in rural Eastern Paraguay, and the study participants were similar
socioeconomically and demographically to eucalyptus growers encountered in the
region as a whole. Additionally, the biophysical and economic context shaping
smallholder eucalyptus plantation forestry in the population appears to be relatively
uniform across Eastern Paraguay, as well as northeastern Argentina and southern
Brazil. As a result, it seems reasonable to generalize my findings to other smallholder
plantations owned by the rural poor in the larger region of subtropical, central South
America.
It would not be sensible to generalize most of my findings, especially those
stemming from uniquely Paraguayan contexts (e.g. natural resource policy and
perceptions/attitudes) to other geographic regions. Eucalyptus plantation forestry
among smallholders in China, India, or the Congo, for example, may be quite different
than what I observed in Paraguay. Additionally, my findings pertain to smallholder
plantations. Large-scale, commercialized plantations (more than the two-hectare
maximum in my study) operate toward different ends and under different conditions.
Finally, it may be appropriate in some cases to generalize findings to other forms of
plantation forestry, especially in a smallholder, Paraguayan context. My findings may
enrich our understanding of the forces shaping smallholder native, loblolly pine (P.
taeda), or paraiso (M. Azedarach) plantation forestry.
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Acknowledgements
With deep gratitude and fondness, I dedicate this report to the study participants and
my friends and adopted family in Paraguay. All of these people welcomed me into their
lives with open hearts and I have attempted to honor them in writing about their
experiences with eucalyptus cultivation. I also acknowledge the irreplaceable support of
my American family, which is, as ever, the greatest source of joy in my life.
I extend my sincere thanks to my advisor, Ivan Eastin, whose advice and support made
my studies at the University of Washington and my participation in the Peace Corps
Master’s International program possible. My committee also provided excellent
guidance in the development and execution of this report. Thanks to Stanley Asah and
Indroneil Ganguly for consultation on coding and inferential statistics, respectively. I
also appreciate the feedback and moral support of my colleagues at the Center for
International Trade in Forest Products, especially my office-mates, Jane Atkins and John
Simeone.
I carried out the research detailed in this report while a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer
supervised by the Environment Sector Associate Peace Corps Director Elizabeth
Cabrera. Her support was critical, as was that of Program Specialist Alistair Kerlin. This
research would have been impossible without the collaboration of my Peace Corps
colleagues in the Environment and Agriculture Sectors. Heather Clark, Sean Conway,
Greg Cooper, Sybil England-Markum, Leah Gourlie, Matt Nesheim, Brian Pattullo, and
Leah Roberts welcomed me to their villages and helped me to conduct interviews with
participants. Thanks also to colleagues Marianna Castiaux, Dan Krantz, and Lauren
100 Middleton for supporting me through the course of the project. My Peace Corps contact
in Village A, Derlis Guerrero, helped with both linguistic and content suggestions as I
refined my survey instrument. “Pendevale.” And a special “aguyje ndeve” to Chris
Wooley.
Finally, “graciamante” to Ings. Raquel Acuña, Porfirio Diaz, and Carmelo Sosa for their
candid and helpful comments during our interviews.
Appendices
A1. English Plantation Survey
Introduction
Hello. I am talking with owners of small tree plantations in order to understand how
families like yours plant them, take care of them, and use wood from them. I plan on
interviewing families in [town name] and other towns where Peace Corps volunteers
live and will then prepare a report. I hope to share the report with you so that you
know what I find out. I will be working with my professors at the University of
Washington in the U.S. and with the Peace Corps in Paraguay.
I would like to ask you a few questions now. Then, if possible, I would like to visit your
plantation to see what it is like and take some measurements. While we are talking, I
will take notes and record our conversation. Any answers you give me will be
anonymous in my report and if you don’t know the answer to a question I ask or don’t
feel like answering, that is not a problem. Please let me know at any time if you have
any questions or if there is information that you feel it would be important for me to
know.
101 Thank you again for helping me. I hope that this report will provide better information
for me and future Peace Corps volunteers in their work.
Family Survey
A. First, I will ask you a few questions about your farm and your use of wood:
1. Name of Municipality
2. Date of Interview
3. How many hectares of land to you own, in total?
4. How many people live in your house?
5. What crops do you grow and approximately how many hectares of each do you
have currently?
6. Which crops are for sale and which are for auto-consumption? (Fill in above)
7. Do you keep pasture for animals? Roughly how big is the pasture?
B. Natural Forests
1. Do you have natural forest on your land? If so, how many hectares?
2. Do you sell products such as firewood, lumber, posts, charcoal, or other products
from your forest?
3. Do you have plans to cut down some of the forest? If so, how much and why?
C. Posts and Construction
1. Where did you obtain wood for posts?
If bought, at what price?
2. Is wood for posts scarce?
102 3. Where do you obtain wood for construction?
If you bought it, how much did boards cost?
4. Is wood for construction scarce?
D. Fuel
1. How does your family cook?
2. How do you obtain firewood?
3. If you buy firewood, how much do you pay for it?
4. Is firewood scarce?
5. Do you use charcoal? If so, how do you obtain it and what do you use it for?
6. If you buy charcoal, how much do you pay per package?
7. If you make your own charcoal, do you only use it or do you sell it?
How do you make it?
What quantities do you make?
8. If you make and sell your own charcoal, how much do you sell it for?
Do you have plans to plant trees for wood to make charcoal?
Plantation Survey
A) Pre-establishment
1. Why did you decide to plant this plantation? 2. What products did you expect the plantation to provide? 3. Did you talk to a neighbor, engineer, or government agent before you planted this
plantation?
103 4. Had you established a plantation like this before?
5. What is the size of the plantation? 6. How did you use this land before you started the plantation? 7. What resources did you lack when you were starting the plantation? B) Establishment 1. What kind of eucalyptus did you plant? 2. Why did you pick this kind? 3. In what year and season did you plant these trees?
4. Where were the seedlings produced? 5. If you planted purchased seedlings, how much did they cost?
6. If you planted seedlings, did many die after being planted? 7. How far apart did you plant trees and how apart were the furrows? 8. What did you have to do to prepare the land for the plantation? Did you cut down
existing trees, machete, burn, spray herbicide, hoe, and/or plow? 9. How is the land where you planted these trees?
Is it wet or dry? Is it on a slope?
10. Did you need to build a fence to keep out animals when you planted these trees? C) Maintenance 1. Do you clean weeds and brush in the plantation?
How often do you clean?
104
How do you clean?
How expensive are materials or labor?
2. Do you prune your trees?
How often do you prune? How do you prune?
3. Do you fertilize your trees?
How often do you fertilize? What fertilizer do you use?
4. Do you thin your trees? (Or, do you remove some trees so that others grow better?)
How many times have you thinned?
How many trees do you remove?
What do you do with thinned trees?
5. Are the trees in your plantation healthy?
Have you had problems with sickness or insect or wild animal damage?
Have you had problems with windthrow? 6. Have you medicated your trees? 7. Have you planted or will you plant green manures, crops, or other trees in your
plantation? 8. Do you permit domestic animals to enter your plantation?
What kinds and how many do you permit to enter?
105
How much time do they spend in the plantation? 9. Have domestic animals eaten or damaged any of the trees in your plantation? D) Plantation Economy 1. How much have you spent, more or less, in total, on this plantation? 2. Do you make any money selling wood or other products from the plantation?
How much do you make in a normal year? 3. Do you extract wood for tools, posts, firewood, or other uses from this plantation? 4. When do you plan on cutting down these trees?
Will you cut them down all at once, in stages, or occasionally, when needed?
5. Who will cut down the trees?
How much do you expect to make in total from selling wood from this plantation? Do you know who will buy it?
Did you know this when you started the plantation?
6. How is the market for the eucalyptus wood?
Are their choices among buyers?
7. When you cut down these trees, will you keep any of the wood for home use? 8. Where is the nearest sawmill? E) I am going to ask you a few questions about how you use your land and what you might want to do in the future with your land. 1. If you were not using this land as plantation, what would you use it for? 2. How will you use this land after you have cut down all the trees in this plantation?
106 3. Would you consider converting crop fields into a plantation? 4. Would you consider converting pasture into a plantation? 5. Do you plan on increasing the amount of land you use for plantations? 6. Can you make more money from a hectare of crops for sale, pasture for animals
such as cows, natural forest, or a plantation? 7. Would you rather have another hectare of natural forest or plantation like what you
have now? 8. If you received some money and wanted to invest it, would you consider buying
land or materials to establish more plantations?
Are plantations good investments? F) Environmental Attitudes 1. Did you consider planting other species of tree instead of eucalyptus? 2. Is eucalyptus native to Paraguay? 3. Have you had any problems with:
Dry soil? Slow growth of nearby trees or crops? Other problems?
4. Is deforestation a problem in this region? 5. If someone plants a eucalyptus plantation, is this a form of reforestation? 6. Does wood from your plantation replace wood that you would otherwise cut from
natural forests?
107 7. What forms of help from the government or other organizations would help you to
manage your plantation or to start another?
A2. Spanish Plantation Survey
Introducción
Buenos días/Buenas tardes. Estoy hablando con los dueños de plantaciones de
eucalipto para comprender el cuidado y manejo de plantaciones y cómo se usa la
madera que viene de tales plantaciones. Haré una entrevista con cada familia en esta
comunidad y en otros lugares donde viven voluntarios del Cuerpo de Paz y de estas
entrevistas, voy a preparar un informe. Quiero compartir este informe con usted para
que sepa lo que he descubierto. Trabajaré con mis profesores de la Universidad de
Washington en los Estados Unidos y con el Cuerpo de Paz.
Ahora, quiero preguntarle a usted unas cosas. Luego, si es posible, me gustaría visitar
su plantación de eucalipto para ver cómo es y para medir los árboles. Mientras
hablamos, voy a tomar apuntes en esta hoja y grabar nuestra conversación. Todas sus
respuestas se quedarán anónimas en mi informe y si no sabe usted cómo contestar una
pregunta o si no quiere contestar, no hay problema. Cuénteme a cualquier momento si
tiene usted una pregunta o si hay otra información que yo debo saber.
Gracias otra vez por su ayuda. Espero que este informe va a brindar información
importante para mí y para otros voluntarios trabajando en el forestal.
Encuesta Familiar
A) Primero, voy a preguntarle unas cosas sobre su finca y su uso de madera:
1. ¿A qué municipio pertenece?
2. ¿Qué es la fecha?
108 3. ¿Cuántas hectáreas usted tiene en total?
4. ¿Cuántas personas viven en este hogar?
5. ¿Qué suele plantar usted y cuántas hectáreas de cada cultivo tiene ahora?
6. ¿Cuáles planta para vender y cuáles va a comer su familia?
7. ¿Tiene ahora campo para animales? ¿Cuántas hectáreas tiene?
B) Bosque
1. ¿Tiene usted bosque natural? ¿Cuántas hectáreas?
2. ¿Vende productos, por ejemplo, leña, madera, postes, carbón, u otras casas de su
bosque?
3. ¿Está planeando para cortar una parte de su bosque? ¿Si va a cortar, ¿cuántas
hectáreas y para qué?
C) Postes y Construcción
1. ¿De dónde viene la madera que usa para reemplazar postes?
Si la compró usted, ¿cuánto pagó para cada poste?
2. ¿Es escasa la madera para postes?
3. ¿De dónde viene la madera que usa para construcción?
Si la compró, ¿cuánto salió cada tabla?
4. ¿Es escasa la madera para construcción?
D) Leña y Carbón
1. ¿Cómo cocina su familia?
2. ¿De dónde viene su leña?
3. Si compra la leña, ¿cuánto sale?
4. ¿Es escasa la leña?
5. ¿Usted usa carbón? Si lo usa, ¿cómo lo obtiene y para qué lo use?
6. Si compra carbón, ¿cuánto sale cada paquete?
7. Si hace su propio carbón, ¿solamente la hace usted para uso en la casa os se vende
también?
109 ¿Cómo se hace el carbón?
¿Qué cantidad hace cada mes?
8. Si hace y vende su propio carbón, ¿cuánto sale cada paquete?
¿Planea usted en plantar más árboles para hacer más carbón?
Encuesta de Plantación
A) Pre-Establecimiento
1. ¿Para qué plantó usted su plantación de eucalipto?
2. ¿Cuáles productos quiere cosechar de su plantación de eucalipto?
3. ¿Consultó con un vecino, un ingeniero, o una persona que trabaja por el gobierno
antes de plantar la plantación de eucalipto?
4. ¿Esa es la primera plantación de eucalipto que plantó usted?
5. ¿En cuántas hectáreas plantó eucalipto?
6. ¿Cómo usaba esa tierra antes de plantar la plantación?
B) Establecimiento
1. ¿Sabe usted qué clase de eucalipto plantó?
2. ¿Para qué escogió esta clase?
3. ¿En qué año y estación plantó la plantación?
4. ¿De dónde consiguió las plantitas de eucalipto?
5. Si compró las plantitas, ¿cuánto salió cada uno?
6. ¿Cuándo plantó las plantitas, murieron muchas después de la plantación?
7. ¿Cuánto espacio se queda entre cada planta y entre las melgas en la plantación?
8. ¿Cómo preparó la tierra antes de plantar el eucalipto? Por ejemplo, ¿echó otros
árboles, corpió, quemó, pulverizó, carpió, o aró?
9. ¿Cómo es la tierra en que plantó el eucalipto?
¿Es mojada o seca?
¿Se queda en pendiente?
110 10. ¿Era necesario hacer cercado aldredador de la plantación para que no entre
animales?
C) Mantenimiento
1. ¿Limpia usted su plantación de eucalipto?
¿Cuántas veces cada año la limpia?
¿Cómo la limpia?
¿Cuando limpia, hay gastos para materiales u obra de mano? ¿Cuántos son los
gastos?
2. ¿Poda usted su plantación?
¿Cuántas veces cada año poda?
¿Cómo poda?
3. ¿Abona usted su plantación?
¿Cuántas veces cada año abona?
¿Qué exactamente usa como abono?
4. ¿Ralea usted su plantación?
¿Cuántas veces cada año ralea?
¿Cuando raleó en el pasado, cuántos árboles sacó?
¿Qué hizo con los árboles raleados?
¿Va a ralear más en el futuro?
5. ¿Está sana su plantación de eucalipto?
¿Ha estado enfermo sus árboles o los ha perjudicado los bichos?
¿Ha echado el viento unos de sus árboles?
6. ¿Ha pulverizado usted sus árboles?
7. ¿Ha plantado o va a plantar usted abonos verdes, cultivos, u otros árboles entre los
árboles de eucalipto?
8. ¿Permite entrar usted animales en su plantación de eucalipto?
¿Qué clase de animal y cuántos permite entrar?
111 ¿Cuánto tiempo pasan los animales en la plantación?
9. ¿Han comido o perjudicado sus árboles los animales?
D) Economía de la Plantación
1. ¿Cuánto ha gastado, más o menos, en total, en su plantación?
2. ¿Ha ganado a través de la venta de madera u otros productos de la plantación?
¿Cuánto gana, más o menos, cada año?
3. ¿Suele cosechar de la plantación madera para herramientas, postes, leña, u otros
usos?
4. ¿Cuándo va a echar los árboles en su plantación?
¿Va a echarlos todo a la vez, en etapas, o de vez en cuando?
5. ¿Quién va a echar los árboles?
¿Cuánto ganará, más o menos, en total, de la venta de la madera de su
plantación?
¿Sabe quién va a comprar de usted la madera?
¿Sabía cuando plantó originalmente la plantación quien iba a comprar de usted
la madera?
6. ¿Está fuerte o débil el mercado para madera de eucalipto?
¿Usted puede elegir entre compradores?
7. ¿Cuando echa usted sus árboles, va a guardar madera para el uso de su familia?
8. ¿Dónde se queda el aserradero más cercada de acá?
E) Voy a preguntarle unas preguntas sobre su tierra: cómo usa su tierra y como la usará
en el futuro.
1. ¿Si no hubiera plantado una plantación de eucalipto, cómo usaría esa tierra ahora?
2. ¿Cómo usará esa tierra después de echar la plantación actual?
3. ¿Usted plantaría una plantación de eucalipto para reemplazar una chacra con suelo
gastado?
4. ¿Usted plantaría una plantación de eucalipto para reemplazar campo para animales?
112 5. ¿En el futuro, va a plantar más eucalipto o amplificar su plantación actual?
6. ¿Cómo puede usted ganar más usando de una hectárea: de plantar como chacra, de
usar para alimentar animales, de aprovecharse de bosque natural, o de plantar una
plantación de eucalipto?
7. ¿Qué tiene más valor: una hectárea de plantación de eucalipto o una hectárea de
bosque natural?
8. ¿Si usted tiene plata para invertir, compraría tierra o materiales para plantar más
eucalipto?
¿Es una buena inversión la plantación de eucalipto?
F) Actitudes Ambientales
1. ¿Cuando plantó el eucalipto, consideró usted la plantación de otra clase de árbol?
2. ¿El eucalipto es una planta nativa de Paraguay?
3. ¿Usted ha experimentado:
Tierra seca alrededor de su plantación?
Crecimiento despacio de otros árboles que plantó cerca del eucalipto?
Otros problemas?
4. ¿Es la deforestación un problema en esta zona?
5. ¿Si una persona planta una plantación de eucalipto como la suya, es eso la
reforestación?
6. ¿En vez de cortar madera del bosque, usted corta madera de su plantación de
eucalipto?
7. ¿Qué podría hacer el gobierno u organizaciones como el Cuerpo de Paz para
ayudarle en el cuidado o plantación del eucalipto?
113 A3. Guaranì Plantation Survey
Introducción
Mba´éichapa. Añemongetahína la eucaliptotyjarakuérandive antende porâve haĝua
mba´éichapa familiakuéra oñoty chupekuéra, oñangareko hesekuéra, ha oiporu la
madera ouvahína chuguikuéra. Ajapota entrevista la familiakuérandive ko
comunidadpe ha otro lugarpe mamo oikohápe voluntariokuéra Cuerpo de Pazpegua ha
upéi asako´ita peteî informe. Acompartise pe informe nendive reikuaahaĝua la che
apillamava. Amba´apota che profesorkuérandive la Universidad de Washingtonpegua,
Estado Unidope ha la Cuerpo de Pazndive.
Aporanduse ndeve sa´i mbae ko´aĝa. Ha upéi, ikaturamô, avisitase nde eucaliptoty
ahechahaĝua mba´éichapa ha amedihaĝua la yvyramatakuéra. Ñañemongeta aja,
anotata ne mbohováikuéra ko kuatiape ha agrabata ñane conversación. Oihaicha ne
mbohováikuéra oimeta anónima che informepe ha ndereikuaái mba´éichapa
rembohovái va´erâ peteî porandu teâ nerembohováisei, ndaípori la problema.
Emombe´una cheve cualquier momento erekoramô porandu teâ oime otra información
che aikuaa va´erâ.
Aguyje jey chepytyvôhaguere. Aha´arô ko informe obrindata información porâve
cheveĝuara ha otro voluntariokuérapeguarâ omba´apohína la forestalpegua.
Encuesta Familiar
A) Peteîha, aporanduta sa´i mba´e ne fincarehegua ha ne maderajeporurehegua:
1. Mba´epa municipio otoca.
2. Mba´epa la fecha.
3. Mboy hectáreapa nde rereko, en total.
4. Mboy mitâpa oiko nde rógape.
114 5. Mba´epa temitŷ reñotyjepi ha mboy hectáreapa cada unorâ rereko ko´aĝa.
6. Mba´epa temitŷ revendeta ha mba´epa ho´uta nde familia. (Escrivi hi´ari.)
7. Rerekopa campo animalrenda. Mboy hectáreapa.
B) Ka´aguy
1. Rerekopa ka´aguy natural. Rerekoramô, mboy hectáreapa.
2. Revendepa productokuéra, por ejemplo jepe´a, madera, postekuéra, carbón, teâ
otramba´e nde ka´guygui. Revenderamô, mba´epa revende, mavapepa, ha mboypa el
precio.
3. Replanificahínapa reikytîhaĝua nde ka´aguy. Reikytîtaramô, mboy hectáreapa ha
marâpa.
C) Postekuéra ha Construcción
1. Mooguapa la madera reiporuva´ekue.
Rejoguaramô la maderape, mboypa repaga.
2. Ijescasopa la madera posterâ.
3. Mooguapa la madera reiporuva´ekue.
Rejoguaramô chupe, mboypa repaga.
4. Ijescasopa la madera construcciónrâ.
D) Jepe´a ha Carbón
1. Mba´eichapa ombojy ne familia.
2. Mooguapa nde jepe´a.
3. Rejoguaramô la jepe´a, mboypa repaga chupeĝuara.
4. Ijescasopa la jepe´a.
5. Reiporupa carbón. Reiporuramô, mba´éichapa religa chupe ha marâpa reiporu
chupe.
6. Rejoguaramô carbónpe, mboypa repaga cada hyrure.
7. Rejaporamô nde propio carbón, reiporuntepa chupe teâ avei revende chupe.
Mba´éichapa rejapo la carbón.
115
Mba´epa cantidad rejapo cada mes.
8. Rejapo ha revenderamô nde propio carbón, a mboypa revende cada hyru.
Replanificahína reñotyvehaĝua yvyramatakuéra rejapovehaĝua la carbón.
Encuesta de Plantación
A) Pre-Establecimiento
1. Marâpa reñotypa ra´ekue nde eucaliptoty.
2. Mba´epa remono´ôse nde eucaliptotygui.
3. Reñemongeta ra´ekue peteî vecinondi, ingenierondi, teâ personandi gobiernopegua
reñotymboyve ko eucaliptoty.
4. Kóa la peteîha eucalipto reñotypa.
5. Mboy hectáreapa reñotypa ra´ekue eucalipto.
6. Mba´éichapa reiporu ra´ekue pe yvy reñotymboyve la eucaliptoty.
B) Establecimiento
1. Reikuaapa mba´epa clase eucalipto reñoty ra´ekue.
2. Marâpa reipora´vo ra´ekue ko clase.
3. Mba´e añopepa ha estaciónpepa reñoty ra´ekue nde eucalipto.
4. Moôguapa la eucalipto ra´y.
5. Rejoguaramo eucalipto ra´y, mboypa ovale cada uno.
6. Reñotyroĝuare eucalipto ra´y, ipirupa ra´ekue heta reñotyrire chupekuéra.
7. Mboypa la mata ha melga la planta mbytepe.
8. Mba´éichapa reprepara ra´ekue la yvy reñotyroĝuare la eucalipto. Por ejemplo,
reikytîpa otro yvyramátakuéra, rekopipa, rehapypa, reipohânopa, rekaapipa, teâ
rearapa.
9. Mba´éichapa la yvy moô reñoty ra´ekue nde eucalipto.
Hykue teâ ikâpa.
Opyta pendientepepa.
10. Itekotevêpa ra´e remongora la eucalipoty pono oike animal.
116 C) Mantenimiento
1. Remopotîpa nde eucaliptoty.
Mboy veces cada año remopotîpa.
Mba´éichapa remopotî.
2. Rehakâ´opa nde eucaliptoty.
Mboy veces cada año rehakâ´opa.
Mba´éichapa rehakâ´opa.
3. Reabonapa nde eucaliptoty.
Mboy veces cada año reabonapa.
Mba´emba´e reiporu eabonahaĝuapa.
4. Reraleamapa nde eucaliptoty.
Mboy veces reraleama.
Reralearoĝuare, mboy yvyramátapa reipe´a.
Mba´epa rejapo ra´ekue la yvyramáta oipe´apyrerehe.
Reraleavetapa.
5. Hesâipa nde eucaliptoty
Hasymapa nde yvyramátakuéra teâ operjudicamapa chupekuéra la bicho.
Oitymapa chupekuéra la yvytu.
6. Reipohânomapa nde yvyramátakuéra.
7. Reñotymapa teâ reñotytapa abonos verdes, cultivos, teâ otra yvyramátakuéra nde
eucalipto mbytepe.
8. Remoingepa animalkuéra nde eucaliptotype.
Mba´epa clase ha mboypa remoingejepi.
Mboy tiempopa ohasa hikuái eucaliptotype.
Marâpa remoinge chupekuéra.
9. Ho´uma teâ operjudicamapa animal la yvyramátakuéra nde eucaliptotype.
D) Economía de la Plantación
117 1. Mboypa regastama en total nde eucaliptotyrehe.
2. Reganamapa revendegui madera teâ otro producto la eucaliptotygui.
Mboyrupipa regana cada año.
3. Remono´omapa madera herramientarâ, posterâ, jepe´arâ, teâ otro usorâ nde
eucaliptotygui.
4. Araka´epa reityta nde eucaliptoty.
Reitytapa la yvyramátakuéra de una vez, en etapas, teâ sapy´apy´a.
5. Mávapa oityta plantakuéra.
Regastatapa realquilahaĝua motosierra.
Regastatapa repagahaĝuamotosierrista.
Regastatapa reikytîkahaĝua tablakuérarâ.
6. Oiko porâpa la mercado la eucaliptomaderarâ.
Ndepa ikatu reipora´vo la comprador pa´ûme.
7. Reityvove nde yvyramátakuéra, reñongatutapa madera oiporuhaĝua ne familia.
8. Moôpa opyta la aserradero aguîve ko´águi.
E) Aporanduta ndeve sa´i porando nde yvyrehe: mba´éichapa reiporu nde yvy ha
mba´éichapa reiporune nde yvy tenonderâme.
1. Nereñotýiguive eucalipto, mba´éichapa reiporune pe yvy.
2. Mba´éichapa reiporuta pe yvy reityvove la eucaliptoty.
3. Ndepa reñotyne peteî eucaliptoty remengoviahaĝua kokue ijyvy imboryahuva.
4. Ndepa reñotyne peteî eucaliptoty remengoviahaĝua campo animalrenda.
5. Reñotyvetapa eucalipto teâ rembotuichávetapa nde eucaliptoty.
6. Mba´éichapa nde ikatu reganave peteî hectáreagui: reñotygui kokue, remongarugui
animal campope, reiporugui la ka´aguy natural, teâ reñotyramo la eucaliptoty.
7. Mba´epa reipotavene: peteî hectáreave eucaliptoty teâ peteî hectáreave ka´aguy
natural.
118 8. Rerekoramo plata reinvertihaĝua, rejoguane tierra teâ materiales reñotyvehaĝua
eucaliptoty.
Oikopa porâ inversiónrâ la eucaliptoty.
F) Actitudes Ambientales
1. Reñotyroĝuare la eucalipto, reconsiderapa reñotyhína otra clase yvyramáta.
2. La eucalipto reñotyva´ekue Paraguayguapa.
3. Reexperimentamapa:
Yvy secoite nde eucaliptotyjerere.
Otro yvyramátakuéra teâ ñotykuéra okakuaa mbegue.
Otra clase problema.
4. La deforestación peteî problemapa ko zonape.
5. Oñotyramo peteî persona peteî eucaliptoty nemba´eícha, ko´apa la reforestación.
6. La madera reikytîva nde eucaliptotygui remengoviapa la madera reikytîva ka´aguy
naturalgui.
7. Mba´epa ikatu ojapo el gobierno teâ peteî organización Cuerpo de Pazícha
roipytyvôhaĝua reñangarekohaĝua nde eucaliptoty o reñotyvehaĝua la eucalipto.
119
Tables
Table 1. Proximate and underlying causes (sensu Geist and Lambin, 2002) of deforestation
Proximate Causes Paraguayan Manifestations SourceAgricultural Expansion Subsistence for a growing, heavily rural population; Macedo and Cartes, 2003; FAO, 2004
Expansion of mechanized agriculture by large landownersInfrastructure Expansion Road-building; Dam construction Weisskoff, 1992; Macedo and
Cartes, 2003Wood Extraction Annual fuelwood demand of 6.3 million m3; Annual FAO, 2011
commercial wood products production of 4.9 million m3
Underlying Causes Paraguayan Manifestations SourceEconomic Increasing urbanization; Increasing demand for FAO, 2004
fuelwood and commercial wood productsInstituional Widespread governmental corruption; JICA, 2002; Cartes and Yanosky, 2003;
Unenforced forestry and environmental policy Yanosky and Cabrera, 2003; Mario et al., 2004
Technological Expansion of mechanized agriculture Mario et al. , 2004by large landowners
Cultural Perceptions of forest as unproductive or infinite. Cartes, 2003; FAO, 2004Demographic History of in-migration into intact forests; Macedo and Cartes, 2003
Rapidly growing population
Table 2. Potential benefits and harms of forestry plantations
Potential Benefits of Forestry Plantations Potential Harms of Forestry PlantationsBuffer edge effects/increase connectivity Are more vulnerable to disease and pests than natural forestsComplement remnant forest Compete against more sustainable forms of land-useDiversify farm income Consist of allelopathic or fire-prone species in some casesFix Carbon Contain only one speciesMeet global wood demand Entail a high capital investment and thus, riskProduce biomass more quickly Entail conversion of natural forestProduce higher quality wood Harm environment due to intensive managementProduce more wood on less land Introduce exotic speciesPromote agroforestry Planted with genetically modified propagulesProvide bioenergy Produce erosion or draw down groundwaterProvide employment and local economic development Produce wood intead of fulfilling multiple socioeconomic functionsReduce Erosion Reduce biodiversity relative to natural ecosystemsRehabilitate degraded land Require even-aged managementTake pressure off natural forest Require specialized technologies and extension projectsTurn into natural forest over time Speed defororestation by reducing value of natural wood productsReferences: Shiva and Bandyopadhyay, 1987; Lamprecht, 1989; Sargent, 1992; Sedjo and Botkin, 1997; Sedjo, 2001;
Cossalter and Pye-Smith, 2003; Evans and Turnbull, 2004; Siry et al. , 2005; Brokerhoff et al. , 2008; Freitas de Souza et al. , 2010; Boulay, et al. , 2012
120
Table 3. Comparative economic analysis of forestry plantations in South America, South Africa, and the United States
Country Species Rotation (yrs.) MAI (m3/ha/year) Total harvest (m3/ha) LEV at 8% (USD/ha) IRR (%)Eucalyptus plantations in Paraguay and regional neighborsArgentina Eucalyptus grandis 15 35 525 3178 18.2Brazil Eucalyptus grandis 15 40 600 8311 25.5Paraguay Eucalyptus grandis 12 38 361 4233 21.4Paraguay Eucalyptus camandulensis 12 28 336 2002 15.4Uruguay Eucalyptus grandis 16 30 240 1389 13.9
Eucalyptus plantations in other countriesColumbia Eucalyptus sp. 19 30 710 5380 16.6South Africa Eucalyptus grandis 20 32 637 2872 12.4Venezuela Eucalyptus sp. 6 25 150 2905 22.4
Pine plantationsArgentina Pinus taeda L. 18 30 540 3202 20.0Brazil Pinus taeda 15 30 450 5242 20.8Paraguay Pinus taeda 20 32 1010 1648 12.0Uruguay Pinus taeda 24 20 480 1048 12.8USA Pinus taeda 30 15 450 171 8.5
Douglas fir plantations in the United StatesUSA Ps. Menzeii (Mirb.) Franco 45 18 1037 -29 8.0
Adapted from Cubbage et al. (2010). MAI = mean annual increment, LEV = land expected value, IRR = internal rate of return.
Table 4. Paraguay's 15 most produced agricultural commodities (2010) and associated export statistics (2009).
2010 2010 2010 2009 2009Production (1,000 USD) Production (MT) % of Total Value of top 15 crops Export (1,000 USD) Export (MT)
Soybeans and derivatives 1951814 7460400 43.6% 1356910 3419123Cattle Meat and derivatives 1037658 384122 23.2% 570362 195620Maize 336586 3108820 7.5% 234162 1868900Pig Meat 230586 150000 5.1% NA NAWheat 184603 1401990 4.1% 173540 868924Cow milk 123670 396300 2.8% NA NACassava 112026 2624080 2.5% NA NAEggs 106162 128000 2.4% NA NASugar cane and derivatives 105569 5130940 2.4% 33031 57798Rice 86926 315213 1.9% 45186 127211Sunflower seed and derivatives 71863 262293 1.6% 67882 166177Oranges 44430 229898 1.0% NA NAChicken meat 34277 24064 0.8% NA NABeans 27285 48775 0.6% NA NASesame 27168 40135 0.6% 75934 60717Adapted from FAO (2012)
121
Table 5. Village, municipality, and department characteristics
Population Sample Size by Village
A (n = 5), B (n = 4), C (n = 5), D (n = 11), E (n = 6), F (n = 2), G (n = 6), H (n = 6)
Municipality Department Villages # of Participants Calculated 2012 PopulationGeneral Higinio Morìnigo Caazapà A 5 1964Tobatì Cordillera B 4 11324San Juan Nepomuceno Caazapà C, D 16 11347Guayaibì San Pedro E 4 3171San Estanislao de Kostka San Pedro E 2 20327San Pedro de Ycuamandiyù San Pedro F 2 14291Alto Verà Itapùa G, H 12 1085
Department Villages Calculated 2012 Population Area (km^2) Population Density (per km^2)Caazapà A, C, D 158162 9496 16.66Cordillera B 272569 4948 55.09San Pedro E, F 392864 20002 19.64Itapùa G, H 593024 16525 35.89Adapted from Paraguay (2012c)
122
Table 6. Mean values for plantation design param
eters across villages (A-H
) and departments in the study region
LocationSize (ha)
# of PlantsStocking (plants/ha)
Plant Spacing (m)
Row
spacing (m)
% W
et Site%
Dry/N
ormal Site
% Level Site
% Slope Site
A0.65
7511156
2.702.70
20%80%
60%40%
B0.19
63333
1.501.50
75%25%
75%25%
C0.95
824867
3.303.90
40%60%
40%60%
D0.98
517529
2.913.45
36%64%
64%36%
E0.70
648925
2.253.13
17%83%
67%33%
F0.94
228243
3.253.25
50%50%
100%0%
G0.50
9771955
2.202.60
33%67%
83%17%
H0.45
446998
2.703.25
50%50%
33%67%
Caazapà
0.89646
7232.95
3.3833%
67%57%
43%C
ordillera0.19
63333
1.501.50
75%25%
75%25%
San Pedro0.77
543707
2.503.17
25%75%
75%25%
Itapùa0.48
6871426
2.452.89
38%63%
67%33%
Population0.74
609824**
2.673.13
37%63%
64%36%
** = significant non-‐‑equality among the four departm
ents at the α = .05 level, per a Kruskal-‐‑W
allis test.
Table 7. Mean usage of site preparation techniques across the study population
Treatment % Utilizing TreatmentHoeing 11%Machete weed cleaning 31%Glyphosate application 2%Plow tilling 13%Tractor tilling 4%Burning 9%Digging holes 96%Fertilization 31%Taungya with corn 22%Taungya with cassava 29%Taungya with other 18%Taungya total 49%
123
Table 8. Mean values for propagule type and plantation establishment parameters across villages (A-H) and departments in the study regionLocation Produced Seedlings (%) Bought/Received Seedlings (%) Mean Plantation Age (yrs.) Oldest Plantation (yrs.) Youngest Plantation (yrs.)
A 20% 80% 4.00 6 2B 25% 75% 7.75 20 3C 20% 80% 2.20 3 1D 27% 100% 2.73 8 1E 17% 83% 5.67 9 1F 50% 100% 5.00 10 0G 0% 100% 10.20 15 6H 33% 100% 6.00 11 2
Caazapà 24% 83% 2.90 8 1Cordillera 25% 75% 7.75 20 3San Pedro 25% 88% 5.50 10 0
Itapùa 17% 100% 7.91 15 2Population 22% 91% 5.07** 20 0
** = significant non-‐‑equality among the four departments at the α = .05 level, per a Kruskal-‐‑Wallis test.
Table 9. Mean usage of plantation management techniques across the study population
Treatment % Utilizing TreatmentCleaning weeds 96%Cleaning with a hoe 58%Cleaning with a machete 51%Cleaning with glyphosate 9%Pruning 71%Pruning with shears 24%Pruning with a saw 38%Pruning with a machete 16%Fertilizing 38%Fertilizing with manure 20%Fertilizing with chemicals 18%Planting green manures 2%Spraying with Pesticide 20%Thinning 11%
124
Table 10. Mean usage of agroforestry techniques across the study populationTechnique % Utilizing Technique
Corn intercropped 22%Cassava intercropped 11%Beans intercropped 7%Garden produce intercropped 7%Banana intercropped 4%Citrus intercropped 4%Taungya 49%Pasture grass planted 13%Planted as windbreak 4%Planning/executing silovpastoral system 40%Planning/executing silvopastoralim or row agroforestry 64%Employing at least one agroforestry technique 73%
125
Table 11. Mean values for household econom
y parameters across villages (A
-H) and departm
ents in the study regionLocation
Household Size
Land Ow
ned (ha)Fields (ha)
Cattle Pasture (ha)
Forest (ha)%
with Subsistence C
rops%
with C
ash Crops
% w
ith Cattle
A3.6
12.81.7
5.01.0
60%40%
80%B
5.33.0
1.90.3
0.350%
25%25%
C8.8
7.237.4
4.816.3
100%100%
100%D
5.626.9
4.810.1
4.7100%
45%82%
E4.3
10.85.0
1.60.7
100%83%
83%F
6.012.0
2.87.5
0.5100%
50%100%
G6.5
16.36.5
3.64.9
100%83%
83%H
5.27.3
5.80.3
0.6100%
83%33%
Caazapà
5.526.7
4.310.3
7.490%
57%85%
Cordillera
5.33.0
1.90.3
0.350%
25%25%
San Pedro4.8
11.14.4
3.10.7
100%75%
88%Itapùa
5.811.8
6.22.0
2.8100%
83%58%
Population5.4
17.7**4.6
5.7**4.4**
91%64%
73%** = significant non-‐‑equality am
ong the four departments at the α = .05 level, per a K
ruskal-‐‑Wallis test.
Table 12. Percentage of participants adopting eucalyptus for specific reasons across villages (A-H
) and departments in the study region
LocationSale
Firewood
Hom
e Use G
eneralC
harcoalR
eforestationR
eplace Native w
oodD
ry out landD
im. Lum
berC
onstruction, Other
ShadeM
edicinalLocal Enterprise
Windbreak
A100%
40%40%
0%0%
0%0%
20%20%
0%0%
0%0%
B0%
50%50%
0%0%
0%75%
25%100%
25%50%
0%0%
C100%
80%60%
20%20%
20%0%
40%40%
0%0%
0%0%
D100%
27%18%
9%0%
27%0%
9%0%
0%0%
0%0%
E50%
67%50%
0%0%
50%0%
17%17%
0%17%
50%0%
F0%
50%50%
50%50%
50%0%
50%0%
0%0%
0%0%
G67%
33%17%
0%0%
0%0%
33%17%
0%0%
0%0%
H33%
67%67%
0%0%
17%0%
67%67%
0%0%
17%67%
Caazapà
100%43%
33%10%
5%19%
0%19%
14%0%
0%0%
0%C
ordillera0%
50%50%
0%0%
0%75%
25%100%
25%50%
0%0%
San Pedro38%
63%50%
13%13%
50%0%
25%13%
0%13%
38%0%
Itapùa50%
50%42%
0%0%
8%0%
50%42%
0%0%
8%33%
Population67%
*49%
40%7%
4%20%
7%**
29%29%
**2%
**7%
**9%
**9%
*** = significant non-‐‑equality am
ong the four departments at the α = .10 level, per a chi-‐‑squared test; ** = significant at α = .05
126
Table 13. Mean rates of project participation across villages (A-H) and departments in the study region
LocationABCDEFGH
CaazapàCordilleraSan Pedro
ItapùaPopulation
** = significant non-equality among the four departments at the α = .05 level, per a Kruskal-‐‑Wallis test.
100%49%**
50%100%100%29%0%
50%
50%
% Planting with Project0%0%
80%18%
Table 14. Mean rates of planting support across villages (A-H) and departments in the study region
Location % Planted Independently % Planted with Neighbor % Planted with ExtensionA 40% 20% 40%B 8% 67% 25%C 40% 0% 60%D 45% 9% 45%E 33% 17% 50%F 0% 50% 100%G 0% 0% 100%H 0% 0% 100%
Caazapà 43% 10% 48%Cordillera 8% 67% 25%San Pedro 13% 25% 63%
Itapùa 0% 0% 100%Population 24%* 13%** 62%* = significant non-‐‑equality among the four departments at the α = .10 level, per a chi-‐‑squared test; ** = significant at α = .05
127
Table 15. Mean rates of planting support across villages (A-H) and departments in the study region
Location Mean Seedling Cost (G's) % Purchasing SeedlingsA 475 80%B No data 25%C 550 80%D 550 64%E 243 67%F 1000 50%G No data 0%H 400 0%
Caazapà 530 71%Cordillera No data 25%San Pedro 394 63%
Itapùa 400 0%Population 696 49%**
** = significant non-equality among the four departments at the α = .05 level, per a chi-‐‑squared test
128
Table 16. a) Mean reported costs, incom
e, and net income for plantation
b) ow
ners reporting these data. b) Detailed econom
ic dataH
ouseholdR
eported Costs
Reported Incom
eN
etPurchased Seedlings?
Already H
arvested? for households reporting costs and/or incom
e associatedA
44000000
0-4000000
yn
with a eucalyptus plantation
D1
10000000
-1000000y
na)
D7
150000
-15000n
nD
82000000
0-2000000
yn
Mean C
ost, when available
D9
250000
-25000y
n for participants reporting.
E20
400000400000
yy
E40
10000001000000
yy
Mean Incom
e, when available
E51000000
30000002000000
yy
for participants reporting.F2
3000000
-300000n
nG
10
18000001800000
ny
Mean N
et, when avaialbe
G2
01150000
1150000n
y for participants reporting.
G3
05000000
5000000n
yG
40
12000001200000
ny
1191428
1792857
over the life of the plantationTotal am
ount sent/earned in Guaraníes
1935714
129
Table 17. Eucalyptus products participants have produced or may produce for domestic use or commercial sale Domestic Use Commercial Sale
Timber Products CharcoalAntennas Commercial FirewoodBeams Dimensional LumberBraces Domestic FirewoodDimensional Lumber Fruit Boxes/CartonsFencing FurnitureFirewood for Cooking LogsFirewood for Roasting Crops RabbetFoundations VeneerPolesPostsRunnersSawdustStavesTool Handles
Non-timber Products
Herbs to Flavor Yerba MateMedicinesMosquito Repellent
130
Table 18. Mean eucalyptus sale parameters across villages (A-H) and departments in the study region
Location % Expecting Stumpage Sale Closest Estimated Sawmill (km)A 100% 15.6B No data No dataC 0% 25.0D 11% 7.5E 25% 8.1F 0% 22.0G 100% 78.3H 100% 73.8
Caazapà 23% 13.9Cordillera No data No dataSan Pedro 17% 10.9
Itapùa 100% 75.7Study Pop. 42%* 27.0**
* = significant non-‐‑equality among the four departments at the α = .10 level, per a chi-‐‑squared test; ** = significant at the α = .05 level per a Kruskal-‐‑Wallis test
131
Table 19. Mean w
ood use parameters across villages (A
-H) and departm
ents in the study region
% R
eporting%
Reporting
% R
eporting%
Using Eucalyptus
% R
eporting%
Reporting
% R
eporting%
Reporting
LocationFirew
ood ScarceFirew
ood Moderate
Firewood A
bundantFirew
ood Price (G's)
as Firewood
Post ScarcePost M
oderatePost A
bundantPost Price (G
's)C
onstruction ScarceA
0%100%
0%35000
20%75%
25%0%
8000100%
B50%
0%50%
7000025%
67%0%
33%15000
50%C
40%0%
60%N
o data0%
20%20%
60%N
o data25%
D20%
0%80%
314299%
30%20%
50%14071
30%E
33%33%
33%29583
33%17%
17%67%
1530075%
F0%
0%100%
450000%
50%0%
50%16500
0%G
20%20%
60%43000
17%60%
20%20%
2187560%
H50%
17%33%
24300067%
50%50%
0%27500
80%C
aazapà21%
21%58%
3222210%
37%21%
42%13313
41%C
ordillera50%
0%50%
7000025%
67%0%
33%15000
50%San Pedro
25%25%
50%33438
25%25%
13%63%
1564350%
Itapùa36%
18%45%
14300042%
55%36%
9%25250
70%Population
28%20%
53%73362**
22%41%
22%37%
18462*51%
% R
eporting%
Reporting
% U
sing Eucalyptus%
Gathering W
ood%
Purchasing Wood
% U
sing Charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal
% M
akingLocation
Construction M
oderateConstruction A
bundantfor C
onstructionfor C
onstruction for C
onstructionO
ccasionallyBuy Price (G
's)Sale Price (G's)
Charcoal
A0%
0%25%
25%50%
100%1088
No data
0%B
0%50%
0%33%
67%50%
12501000
33%C
25%50%
0%80%
20%80%
1000250
40%D
10%60%
0%100%
0%91%
596N
o Data
22%E
0%25%
0%40%
60%83%
1300N
o data0%
F0%
100%0%
100%0%
100%1370
350050%
G0%
40%17%
67%33%
60%1250
No data
40%H
20%0%
40%60%
40%100%
2088750
17%C
aazapà12%
47%5%
80%15%
90%848
25021%
Cordillera
0%50%
0%33%
67%50%
12501000
33%San Pedro
0%50%
0%57%
43%88%
13123500
14%Itapùa
10%20%
27%64%
36%82%
1920750
27%Population
9%40%
10%68%
29%84%
1220**1375
23%* = significant non-‐‑equality am
ong the four departments at the α = .10 level, per a K
ruskal-‐‑Wasllis test; ** = significant at α = .05
132
Table 20. Mean particpant land-use patterns across villages (A-H) and departments in the study regionForest Wet Meadow Fallow Yard Subsistence Crops Cash Crops Pasture Eucalyptus
Land-use before Eucalyptus 0% 5% 9% 9% 36% 18% 23% NAProbable Land-use after Eucalyptus 4% 0% 0% 0% 8% 0% 12% 76%Probable Alternative Land Use 6% 0% 13% 0% 25% 22% 34% NA
Table 21. Mean particpant responses to land-use questions across villages (A-H) and departments in the study regionLocation % of Participants who
want to expand/replant Pasture Field Eucalyptus Forest Eucalyptus
A 80% 50% 0% 50% 50% 50%B 50% No data No data No data 100% 0%C 100% 40% 20% 40% 80% 20%D 100% 25% 13% 63% 50% 50%E 60% 25% 0% 75% 25% 75%F 100% 50% 0% 50% 100% 0%G 33% 0% 80% 20% 60% 40%H 83% 20% 20% 60% 50% 50%
Caazapà 95% 35% 12% 53% 58% 42%Cordillera 50% No data No data No data 100% 0%San Pedro 71% 33% 0% 67% 50% 50%
Itapùa 67% 10% 50% 40% 56% 44%Population 80% 27% 21% 52% 57% 43%
Is cattle pasture, a field for cash crops, or eucalyptus plantation most valuable? Is forest or eucalyptus plantation more valuable?
Table 22. Mean percentages of participants holding negative views about eucalyptus externalities across villages (A-H) and departments in the study region
Location Dries out Soil Competes with or Inhibits Adjacent PlantsA 60% 40%B 33% 67%C 0% 0%D 18% 27%E 83% 67%F 100% 100%G 83% 83%H 33% 50%
Caazapà 24% 24%Cordillera 33% 67%San Pedro 88% 71%
Itapùa 58% 67%Population 45% 47%