In Chile, roughly 16% of energy consumption comes from the residential sector, and the most consumed residential fuel is firewood (39.6%), followed by gas (31.4%), and electricity (25.7%) (Figure 1).
The use of fuelwoods in the residential sectors increases in the southern regions of Chile where it is mainly used for heating. As presented in the study by Reyes et al. (2018), for the year 2015 it was estimated that in the city of Valdivia the use of firewood corresponded to 79.1% of the residential energy matrix.
In this context, it is important to be aware of how the high consumption of fuelwoods has an impact on forests, and what are the potential negative effects on these ecosystems.
In the case of Valdivia, the firewood origin is unknown, since the largest part comes from informal sources and not from sustainably managed forests (Reyes et al., 2015; Schueftan and González, 2015).
Additionally, it is important to understand that the relation between biomass consumption and soil degradation is not necessarily direct. In fact, firewood extraction does not necessarily cause forest degradation, since a good part of native forest owners do not extract wood every year (just sporadically). This allows vegetation to recover to a certain extent, as long as there are no other activities that prevent it (e.g., extensive cattle ranching, in which cows, sheep and goats enter the forest to feed on the young trees. In the process they trample, break and destroy the future forest). The probability of producing firewood decreases when the availability of non-farm income increases (it refers to the portion of farm household income obtained off the farm, including state subsidies), or when agricultural productivity increases (Bluffstone, 1995; Amacher et al., 1996; Schively, 2001; Godoy et al., 2005).
Thus, it is important to analyze these processes from a multisystem perspective in order to understand the effects that urban and rural residential energy consumption has on ecosystems.
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