REPUBLIC OF CHILE Preliminary report: Land Degradation Neutrality Project This report summarizes the key outcomes of the national efforts carried out in 2014 and 2015 towards putting in practice the land degradation neutrality concept. The LDN project, which was sponsored by the Republic of Korea, was carried out with the support of the UNCCD Secretariat and implemented in partnership with the Joint Research Center of the European Commission and CAP 2100 International. 2 1. LDN National Voluntary Target and Strategy The National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) of the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile is the National Coordinating Body of the Government of Chile to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and is responsible to coordinate compliance with international commitments with the Convention and the Ten-Year Strategic Plan (10yrSP 2008-2018) through the implementation of the National Action Program to Combat Desertification (PANCCD-Chile). From April 2015, the Government of Chile began a new stage in the review process and alignment of PANCCD-Chile with the Ten Year Strategic Plan of the UNCCD, which considers the establishment of a national baseline reference for it upcoming assessments and national reports to the Convention. Chile is a country seriously affected by desertification, land degradation and drought, therefore the Ministry of Agriculture of Chile, CONAF and national and international organizations concerned with combating desertification work hard to reverse land degradation processes and their causes and mitigate its impacts on land productivity. The Government of Chile through instruments to promote afforestation, irrigation and recovery of areas in process of desertification and degraded soils of the Ministry of Agriculture, has achieved concrete results in terms of sustainable land management as well as actions to mitigate the effects of drought. The current severe drought situation in the country has been a major boost to voluntarily participate in the Pilot Project Land Degradation Neutrality (PLND) coordinated by the Executive Secretary of the UNCCD, expressing the political priority given by the country to this approach of the UNCCD Convention, which allows a long-term nail down of the traditional position of the country in this international forum to establish global goals on land degradation neutrality and 3 thus generate the conditions to establish protocols for implementation and appropriate financing schemes. In this document preliminary results for the characterization of the dynamics of net primary productivity of land associated with changes in land use and potential implications for reduction or loss of topsoil organic carbon are shown. These preliminary results summarize methodological applications of UNCCD guidelines on generating baseline scenarios for monitoring, evaluation and follow up of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN). The background of this report will allow the country to advance in the definition of national voluntary goals on land neutrality, and the development of subsequent national documents for the reporting process referred to in Article 26 of the text of the Convention concerning progress in implementing its National Action Program (PANCCD - Chile) and the progress made towards achieving the objectives of the UNCCD Ten-Year Strategy. The results summarized in this preliminary report are provisional and unofficial, considering that the final results should be harmonized with the proposal of the National Action Program to Combat Desertification aligned with the UNCCD Ten-Year Strategy and goals of the Government of Chile for the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). The indicators used to monitor progress towards achieving the objectives of land degradation neutrality at the national level include: (a) Land cover and cover changes over the period 2000-2010; (b) Dynamics of land productivity; (c) Content of topsoil organic carbon (0.30 m). This report includes a comparative framework for the analysis of the results delivered by JRC (2014).1 1 Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Union. The data obtained by the JRC (2014) were the result of the agreements reached at the initial meeting of the project; Land Degradation Neutrautrality in Bonn,January 2015: http://wad.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.php/mapping. 4 The general objective of this preliminary report aims to establish a reference framework for comparison with the data obtained by the Project LDNp of land use change, dynamics of land productivity, and baseline for soil carbon stock in Chile . The specific objectives are: Identify, select and collect available data sources to quantify factors associated with land degradation. Establish metrics on aspects related to land degradation neutrality project to the communes of Chile. Identify geographically, sites at the level of commune, that are of priority to combat and monitor the reduction in land productivity. Table 1. National Data of Chile National data Total population 18.006.407 people (INE 2015)2 Rural population 2.340,832 people (INE 2015)2 Urban population 15.665,574 people (INE 2015)2 Forest surface 16.545,223 ha (CONAF, 2013)3 4 Superficie agrícola 3.398.685 ha (CONAF, 2013) 5 Índice de Desarrollo Humano (IDH) 0,822 (muy alto) (UNDP, 2014) 6 Producto Interno Bruto (PIB/INB) Per Cápita US$ 19.067 (Banco Mundial, 2014) 2 National Statistical Institute of Chile, 2015. Environmental pressure variables: Population, Available: http://www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/estadisticas_medio_ambiente/medio_ambiente.php 3 National Forestry Corporation (CONAF). Cadastre of Native Plant Resources of Chile. Variables of the state of the environment. Available in: http://www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/estadisticas_medio_ambiente/medio_ambiente.php 4 National Forestry Corporation (CONAF). Cadastre of Native Plant Resources of Chile. Variables of the state of the environment. Available in: http://www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/estadisticas_medio_ambiente/medio_ambiente.php 5 United Nations Development Program (July de 2014). «Human Development report 2014 - Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience» 6 INB per cápita, Atlas method (US$ to current price). World Bank, 2014. Available in:: http://datos.bancomundial.org/pais/chile 5 2. Different Critical Processes and their Corresponding Key Drivers Indicator 1: Land cover and cover changes during the period 2000 -2010 This indicator focuses on interventions on the land that directly affect their situation and the impacts on goods and services. The categories of land use used come from the map of land cover version 1.5 given by the European Space Agency (ESA) of their project Climate Change Initiative (CCI). These categories were adjusted to the Best Practice Guidelines for LULUCF of IPCC to generate the maps of current use of land in the years 2,000 and 2,010, and to stablish the net change of surface for each use of the land in these years. Table 2. Land cover and cover changes during the period 2000 -2010 Land area Land area Net change in (2000) (2010) area (2000- Land-Use Category. 2010) sq km sq km sq km Forest land 204.696 204.414 -281,4 Shrubs, grasslands and sparsely vegetated areas 226.693 226.826 132,7 Cropland 57.141 57.290 148,7 Wetlands and water bodies 36.400 36.400 0,0 Artificial areas 4.271 4.271 0,0 Bare land and other areas 211.208 211.208 0,0 Total 740.411 740.411 0,0 Source: ESA CCI-LC años 2000, 2005, 2010.7 7 European Space Agency. Available in: http://maps.elie.ucl.ac.be/CCI/viewer/index.php 6 The net rate of change in land cover at the national level is 0.014%, this rate reflects little change occurring in Chile in terms of forest cover. The greatest change is the replace of forest covers into agriculture (52.8%), a similar proportion of change is represented for the change of forest cover into shrubs, grassland and areas of scarce vegetation (47.2%). For this study it was not possible to adjust data for forest cover to the Cadastre and Evaluation of Native Plant Resources of Chile, in that sense, today CONAF meets their efforts to update and adapt the cadastral databases, such figures will be published in future national communications. 7 Map 1. Land cover, year 2000. 8 Map 2. Land cover, year 2010. 9 Map 3. Land surface net change, period 2000-2010. 10 Indicator 2: Dynamics of land productivity This indicator is based on the land capacity for food production, regulation of the flow of water, energy and nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems, carbon sequestration and the provision of habitat for many species. The land productivity reflects climatic constraints, the overall quality of the land, the efficiency of using the land and other resources and indirectly indicates the level to which these resources are suitable for human use, that is, is the land used for intensive / extensive farming, grazing, forestry or urban use. Therefore, the dynamics of land productivity may indicate the levels of land quality. The dynamics of land productivity for Chile was calculated from observations of the land using satellites, such space observations effectively captures variations in the type, amount and timing of the production of biomass of an ecosystem. Some factors that influence the biomass production of ecosystems are climate change, as well as structural elements of ecosystems such as altitude, slope, soil and all life supported features, type of biomass and, of course, human interaction expressed in urban areas, forests, agriculture