RESEARCH PAPER

Eucalypts in Agroforestry, Reforestation,and Smallholders’ Conceptions of ‘‘Nativeness’’:A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in EasternParaguay

Jake J. Grossman

Accepted: 21 July 2014

� Steve Harrison, John Herbohn 2014

Abstract Despite claims that plantations both enhance and undermine the quality,

valuation and protection of natural forests, plantation forestry continues to expand

worldwide. In Paraguay, changes in environmental policy, extension practices, and

public perception of eucalypts (Eucalyptus spp.) have promoted a boom in plan-

tation production of these species over the last 20 years. Smallholders, faced with

the dilemma of accelerating environmental degradation juxtaposed with persistent

economic need, have widely adopted eucalypt forestry due to the quick growth, low

establishment cost and high commercial value of eucalypt plantations. The conse-

quences of this recent, rapid change for smallholder land management remain

uncharacterized. Mixed methods analysis of a multiple-case study of 45 families

was employed to describe the evolving ecological context of small-scale eucalypt

forestry in Eastern Paraguay. This study suggests that eucalypts play a complex,

potentially sustainable role in the study area. Producers have integrated agroforestry

into eucalypt management and report replacing crop and cattle production with

eucalypts in the mosaic of regional land-use. Eucalypts are also integral to partic-

ipants’ views on reforestation of deforested land and fit ambiguously into their

concepts of reforestation and species’ nativeness. Understanding the evolving role

of eucalypts in Eastern Paraguay is of critical importance to policymakers and

foresters promoting sustainable management.

Keywords Allelopathy � Atlantic Forest � Deforestation � Exotic forestry �Forest management � Taungya

J. J. Grossman (&)

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities,

100 Ecology Building, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA

e-mail: gross679@umn.edu

123

Small-scale Forestry

DOI 10.1007/s11842-014-9272-8

Introduction

The world’s forests are critical sources of ecosystem services (MEA 2005), though

their role is usually underappreciated (Vihervaara et al. 2012) and increasingly

compromised by deforestation (Ditt et al. 2010). Tropical and subtropical loss of

forest cover remains especially intense, despite recent decreases in net global

deforestation (FAO 2011). Whereas the 1990–2000 rate of global forest loss

averaged 8.3 M ha per year (0.20 %), the 2000–2010 figure dropped to 5.3 m ha

annually—just 0.13 % of the estimated 4 billion ha of forested land worldwide.

However, these global mean rates of deforestation include a precipitous loss of

forest cover in the tropics and subtropics, partially offset by low deforestation rates

and considerable afforestation in temperate zones (Siry et al. 2005; FAO 2011).

South America’s 2000–2010 deforestation rate of 0.45 % was more than three

times the world average, despite gains in afforestation in Uruguay and Chile (FAO

2011).

Paraguay’s current deforestation rate of 0.9 % represents progress relative to the

1.64 % rate estimated for the period 1984–1997 (Hansen and DeFries 2004; FAO

2011). Yet even this persistent, modest loss of forest cover is unsustainable over the

long term. National patterns of ecosystem conversion are concentrated in the

Oriental (Eastern) region—40 % of Paraguay’s surface area—as is the country’s

population of 6.35 M, 98 % of whom live in the East (UN 2011; USDS 2012).

Eastern Paraguay also encompasses all of the country’s remaining fragments of the

endangered Atlantic Forest ecoregion (‘‘Atlantic Forest’’). Recent estimates

(reviewed by Tabarelli et al. 2010) put remaining cover of the Paraguayan,

Brazilian and Argentine Atlantic Forest at 12.9 % of historical levels. Yet these

remnant patches remain vulnerable to the same pressures of deforestation that have

precipitated the loss of so much of the region’s natural capital (Huang et al. 2007).

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, globalized one in the present day

(Weisskoff 1992; Macedo and Cartes 2003). This model remains vital to the

national export sector and the domestic economy, notwithstanding the continued

expansion of the service sector (UN 2011; USDS 2012). Natural resource-driven

development will therefore continue to reinforce the negative environmental

consequences that stem from the liquidation of the country’s once plentiful natural

resources (Cartes 2003). As a result, the region’s smallholders are faced with the

prospect of further depletion of natural capital within the Atlantic Forest ecoregion

and the concomitant deepening of already considerable rural poverty (Macedo and

Cartes 2003). This pattern of natural resource-based development 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 smallholder forestry

practices represents one opportunity for sustainable management of Eastern

Paraguay’s remaining natural resources.

J. J. Grossman

123

Encouraged by national environmental policy,1 and enthusiastic public and

private extensionists, Paraguayan farmers are increasingly joining landholders

across the globe in investing in forest plantations as one such form of sustainable

land-use. The most recent FAO (2010) report puts global plantation cover at 7.0 %,

a historical high. During the years preceding the study period (2011), Paraguay

experienced a national eucalypt boom.2 Eucalypts quickly replaced other exotic

species as the plantation tree of choice, and a number of smallholders established

plantations and woodlots for the first time.

The economic appeal of eucalypts stems from their rapid growth rate, low

establishment cost and high commercial value. The average rotation time for

plantation-owning smallholders surveyed in Eastern Paraguay was 9 years (Gross-

man 2012). Even the 12-year rotation reported by Cubbage et al. (2010) for larger

commercial eucalypt plantations in Paraguay constitutes one of the shortest rotation

periods for plantation forestry in the Americas. These short rotations are made

possible by high growth rates, of 38 m3/ha for Paraguayan E. grandis plantations

and 28 m3/ha for E. camuldensis (Cubbage et al. 2010). And though stumpage

prices for eucalypts are often lower than for other tropical and sub-tropical

silvicultural species, the low establishment costs and high productivity of

plantations contribute to the profitability of eucalypts. In the study region, eucalypt

seedlings could be purchased for about 0.14 USD and roughly a fifth of surveyed

smallholders in Eastern Paraguay produced their own seedlings from collected seed

(Grossman 2012). Cubbage et al. (2010) put the establishment costs of a commercial

E. grandis plantation in Paraguay at 1013 USD/ha with an internal rate of return for

plantations of 21.4 % and a net present value of 2,552 USD/ha (at an 8 % discount

rate). Though smallholder plantations doubtlessly generate lower economic returns,

the relative profitability of eucalypt for smallholders may be maintained by lower

establishment costs than those that have been documented for commercial

plantations (Grossman 2012).

Many of the alleged social and economic impacts of the spread of eucalypt

plantation forestry on rural peasants are similar to the impacts of plantation forestry

more generally. Yet eucalypt plantations may be especially damaging to their local

environment due to high rates of water uptake, allelopathy, and disruption of native

vegetation communities—qualities that may also make eucalypts unsuitable for

agroforestry. Claims to this effect have undermined the adoption of eucalypts in

Paraguay and many other tropical and sub-tropical eucalypt-growing regions (Poore

and Fries 1987; Couto and Dube 2001). At the same time, workers studying

eucalypt plantation forestry often stress that its negative externalities are context-

1 The regulatory framework includes 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 (JICA 2002;

Yanosky and Cabrera 2003).2 The Paraguayan Agriculture and Ranching Ministry (MAG 2009) reported that between 1991 and 2008,

the area covered by forest plantations in Paraguay rose by a factor of 10, but the coverage of eucalypt

plantations increased from 2,925 to 56,654 ha, a more than 19-fold increase. By comparison, increases in

coverage of other major plantation species including pine (1.5-fold) and paraıso (Melia azedarach L.;

3.75-fold) were modest. Plantation coverage is highest in the three southeastern provinces of Caazapa,

Itapua and Alto Parana.

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

123

dependent, varying from pernicious to negligible across ecological settings and

management regimes (Sunder 1993; Jagger and Pender 2003; Ceccon 2005;

Bertomeu 2012). The literature addressing the ecological impacts of eucalypts—

usually in large, commercial plantations and never in Paraguay—does not provide

insight into the ecology of smallholder eucalypt plantation forestry.

Management and conservation of the Paraguayan extent of the Interior Atlantic

Forest are the result of continuous feedback between biotic and abiotic conditions

and practices of land use—which are themselves shaped by shared ideas about the

natural world (Cronon 1996; Zerner 2003). Exotic tree plantations—intensely

human-managed ecosystems structured by political and economic incentives and

constraints—can play diverse roles in sustainable management of forested and

agricultural land, even supporting restoration of deforested landscapes (Lamb 1998;

Lamb et al. 2005). The objective of this paper is to assess the role of eucalypt

forestry in rural smallholder land management preferences in Eastern Paraguay. To

this end, a multiple-case study was conducted of rural families with eucalypt

plantations who hosted US Peace Corps volunteers in the region. Specifically, this

study was designed to explore the agroforestry practices, relative preferences for

growing eucalypts, as well as attitudes regarding the nativeness of eucalypts,

environmental externalities, and role in deforestation and reforestation that shape

management of agricultural landscapes within the study area.

Research Method

This investigation of smallholder eucalypt plantation forestry takes the form of a

holistic, multiple-case study (following Yin 2003). The case study approach allows

for problem-oriented analysis of natural resource issues, focusing specifically on

local context and on linkages between people and natural resources (Smith et al.

2012). Households are treated as distinct cases, each contributing in a distinct way

to provide a nuanced understanding of rural smallholder preferences in Eastern

Paraguay. Individual households represent single units in a larger study population

with a ‘‘global nature’’ (Yin 2003), in this case rural Paraguayan smallholders who

have adopted eucalypt plantation forestry.

The author developed the survey questionnaire based on conversations with

known eucalypt plantation owners3 and submitted the questionnaire to the

University of Washington’s human subject review board4 in early 2011. A pilot

3 From 2009 to 2011, the author served as an agroforestry extension volunteer in the US Peace Corps in

Community A (Caazapa province). While conducting the field research, the author was still affiliated with

Peace Corps, but not with any other public or private development groups. Status as a Peace Corps

volunteer certainly affected the relationship with participants in the communities. This may have been a

limitation in some respects: participants may have been less likely to report negative attitudes toward

reforestation efforts or community-based forestry practices including those promoted by Peace Corps

volunteers. At the same time, affiliation with the Peace Corps and the positions of trust in the

communities included in the study system facilitated candid, honest responses from participants.4 Field research was conceived of and executed while the author was affiliated with the University of

Washington.

J. J. Grossman

123

survey was carried out in his ‘‘home’’ community (A)5 and minor revisions were

made to the questionnaire.

All heads of households available (a single adult, a partnered couple or a parent

and an adult child) of 45 rural, eucalyptus-owning, smallholder families in eight

communities distributed across four provinces (departamentos) of Eastern Paraguay

were interviewed from April to October of 2011 (described further in Grossman

2012). After introductions, interviews lasted for between 15 and 90 min. The

interviews were semi-structured, consisting of open- and close-ended questions. All

interviews were conducted in the participant’s language of choice, 44 in Guaranı

and one in Spanish). Some participants were unable, or did not wish, to answer some

survey questions and questions were also omitted when the volunteer(s) believed

that they would not be appropriate for the particular participant. Audio recordings

and hand-written notes were taken during all interviews. Every interview was

preceded by a discussion of the voluntary, exploratory and confidential nature of the

process and most interviews took place in or were followed by a visit to the

participant’s eucalypt plantation.

The author transcribed and translated all participant responses into English, using

Krivoshein and Acosta’s (2006) dictionary for reference. As in Smith et al. (2012),

response data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The

analysis methods are described more fully in Grossman (2012). Data were coded

qualitatively in NVivo ver. 9 following Saldana’s (2011) first-cycle descriptive and

evaluative coding protocols.

Case Study Participants and Context

Participant households were located across Eastern Paraguay (Fig. 1).6 Communities

were chosen for inclusion in the case study through convenience sampling; in 2011,

each village hosted an American volunteer (either the author or a colleague) in the

Environment or Agriculture sector of the US Peace Corps and was inhabited by at

least two smallholder families with eucalypt plantations. Within each of these eight

communities, all accessible smallholder households with eucalypt plantations were

included in the study population. In all cases, Peace Corps volunteers were able to

provide local knowledge about plantation forestry in the community, assist with the

recruitment of participants, and provide a sense of rapport during interviews. All

volunteers were either the first or second volunteer to serve in the community, and

villages had hosted a Peace Corps volunteer for between 1 and 3 years. Volunteers

5 For the purpose of this study, participants are identified by a code such as ‘‘A1’’, consisting of a letter

A-H corresponding to a home community or village (Fig. 1), and a number to distinguish between

participants from that village.6 The eight study communities were located in seven municipalities: (1) San Pedro de Ycuamandiyu

(Community F), (2) San Estanislao de Kostka (Community E), (3) Guayaibı (Community E), (4) Tobatı

(Community B), (5) General Higinio Morınigo (Community A), (6) San Juan Nepomuceno (Communities

C and D), and (7) Alto Vera (Communities G and H). Community E was split between municipalities 2

and 3. Villages were located in four provinces or departamentos: San Pedro (1–3), Cordillera (4),

Caazapa (5, 6) and Itapua (7). Figure 1 was adapted from images from the Wikimedia Commons (http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paraguay).

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

123

were engaged in a variety of community development and extension projects related

to forestry, row cropping, environmental education, and natural resource manage-

ment. Although establishment of all participants’ eucalypt plantations predated

volunteers’ presence in the village, Community A was the only one in which a Peace

Corps volunteer had initiated projects involving the planting of eucalypts. The author

conducted interviews unaccompanied in community A and was accompanied by a

resident Peace Corps Volunteer in all other communities. All participants were met

in their own or a neighbour’s home or in their fields or plantations.

All case study villages were located in rural areas in which the main economic

activities were row cropping and ranching. To meet subsistence needs study

participants cultivated crops (especially cassava, corn, peanuts and beans), and

raised animals (chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, pigs, sheep, goats and cattle).

Participants also grew various cash crops, including corn, sesame, cotton, soy,

wheat, watermelon, pineapple, banana, citrus, yerba mate and tung. Many engaged

in production forestry of exotic timber species, although production forestry

generally contributed much less to household income than farming or remittances

from household members living abroad. Some households sold timber commer-

cially, but also used timber for subsistence needs, including fence posts, home

construction, firewood, and charcoal production. Village sizes ranged from a few

dozen to 200–300 households. On average, participants were from households of 5.4

individuals and owned 17.7 ha of land, with 4.6 ha devoted to row crops, 5.7 ha

devoted to cattle ranching, and 4.4 ha consisting of forest cover (Grossman 2012).

Households from which participants are quoted at length in the present study are

described in more detail in ‘‘Appendix’’.

Participants largely enjoyed secure land tenure as a result of aggressive

privatization and distribution of public land to both large and small landowners

during the Stroessner administration in 1954–1989 (Hetherington 2009). Although

relative to large landowners, rural smallholders control a tiny portion of the more

than 90 % of Paraguayan land in private hands, secure private tenure is more

common for Paraguayan smallholders than is often the case in Latin America

(Quintana and Morse 2005; Hetherington 2009).

Results and Discussion

Inclusion of Eucalypts in Agroforestry Systems

About 73 % of study participants employed taungya, silvopastoralism or other

agroforestry systems7 in the establishment or maintenance of their eucalypt

plantations (Table 1). The most common associations were eucalypts with corn

(22 %), with pasture grasses such as Brachiaria brizantha (13 %), or with cassava

(11 %). Although some farmers planted crops next to or within mature eucalypt

7 Following Nair (1993), silvopastoral systems (plantations of trees managed as pasture for animals) and

taungya (the planting of tree seedlings in existing row crops) are treated as agroforestry systems.

J. J. Grossman

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plantations (especially in the case of windbreaks), the practice of taungya (described

by Helms 1998)—planting annual crops for only the first few years of tree growth

and then converting to a permanent tree plantation without crops—was more

common. Taungya was appealing to participants for several reasons. Weeding,

usually carried out by the family members responsible for weeding of subsistence

row crops, is one of the major costs of plantation establishment, and it is only

necessary in low- or medium-intensity eucalypt plantation management for the first

2–3 years following planting. Participants who planted eucalypts in their fields

could weed both their new eucalypt plantation and their row crops simultaneously

(Ceccon and Miramontes 2008). Even when simultaneous weeding of row crops and

trees is little faster than sequential weeding of separate plantations, the perception of

efficiency removes barriers to tree planting (Hamilton and Bliss 1998). Taungya

also allowed participants to reap modest benefits in the form of food production

from young forest plantations (Cuoto and Gomes 1995).

Eucalypt agroforestry was not acceptable to some study participants. Only one-

third of participants practicing agroforestry employed a system in which adult

eucalypt trees grew alongside crops or animals. Some participants who experi-

mented with agroforestry reported considerable losses in crop health and yield, an

example being found in the discussion with Participant E4:

Fig. 1 Municipalities included in the case study (1–7)

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

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Tobacco, corn, they grow less beside it.

Beside it?

Yes, some 20 or 30 metres 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 ….

Critically, in this interview excerpt, a participant made the common distinction

between nande kaaguy or nande yvyrakuera (‘‘our forest’’ or ‘‘our trees,’’

respectively, in Guaranı) and eucaliptos (‘‘eucalypts’’ in Spanish)—a distinction

that often structured participant conceptions of eucalypt nativeness (Chew and

Hamilton 2011). Another participant (H6), when asked if staple crops such as

cassava grow well or poorly alongside eucalypts responded:

Yes, they grow less. I say that eucalypts have a problem, as I see. If you plant

eucalypts 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 %.

Generally, participants referred to eucalypts as haku (‘‘hot’’) or as a tree that

oipytese la y (‘‘wants to suck up the water’’). These designations, also applied to

corn, situate eucalypts within the ecology of Paraguayan row and tree crops. Like

corn, eucalypts are viewed as plants with high water needs that dry out the soil and

should not be planted with plants that require high soil moisture or nutrient-rich soil.

The most negative agroforestry anecdotes shared by participants dealt with attempts

to plant eucalypts alongside sensitive perennial tree crops such as grafted citrus and

yerba mate. In these cases, adjacent crops reportedly withered or failed to fruit in

proximity to eucalypt windbreaks and block plantations. The association of adult

trees with hardy annual crops including cassava and corn or with B. brizantha grass

generally produced better results (Paula et al. 2013).

Table 1 Mean usage of

agroforestry techniques across

the study population

Technique Respondents

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 silovpastoralim or row

agroforestry

64

Employing at least one agroforestry technique 73

J. J. Grossman

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Relative Preferences for Eucalypt Silviculture

Agroforestry techniques and preferences regarding land devoted to eucalypt

silviculture were discussed with study participants in order to situate their eucalypt

plantations within networks, shown in Fig. 2,8 of realized, potential, and most or

least valued agricultural and silvicultural practices. Prior to settlement, most land

occupied by plantations in the study area consisted of Atlantic Forest or, less

frequently, wet meadows. Many participants converted previously farmed or

otherwise managed land, rather than natural forest or wet meadows, in order to

establish their current plantations. Participants frequently reported having replaced

subsistence row crops (36 %), cattle pasture (23 %) or cash crops (18 %) with

eucalypts and no study participants reported converting natural forest to eucalypts.

Only 5 % or participants reported converting natural ecosystems (all of them wet

meadows in village B) to eucalypt plantations. Three-quarters of participants

intended to either coppice their current plantations and let them sprout again or to

replant eucalypts after harvesting. Others predicted that they would establish cattle

pasture (12 %) or subsistence row crops (8 %) or allow for natural forest

regeneration (4 %).

A consistent criticism of plantation forestry is that its adoption may lead to the

conversion of natural forest or other ecosystems to less biodiverse, less functional

plantations (Cossalter and Pye-Smith 2003; Brockerhoff et al. 2008). Smallholders

in the case studies reported that they had not converted natural forest cover to plant

their current trees, suggesting that smallholder eucalypt plantation forestry in

Eastern Paraguay may actually provide direct environmental benefits relative to

alternatives, such as row crops and cattle pasture, that entail low levels of structural

and species diversity and frequent plowing or burning.

Eucalypt plantations may also indirectly support sustainable management of

natural forests in the study region by providing smallholders with firewood,

construction wood and products for commercial sale that they would otherwise

harvest from natural forests. Some of the participants interviewed used eucalypt

wood to meet domestic needs: 22 % of participants harvested firewood and 10 %

harvested construction wood from their plantations (Grossman 2012). Two-thirds of

participants planned to commercialize their plantations or had already done so.

Thus, eucalypt plantations may drive sustainable forest management in the study

population, both directly and indirectly, by serving as potential alternatives or

complements to natural forests as sources of wood (Sunder 1993; Ceccon and

Miramontes 2008). Though eucalypt plantations do not always live up to Sedjo and

Botkin’s (1997) sustainable solution for deforestation, it does appear that among

smallholders, the practice of eucalypt plantation forestry may conditionally ‘‘spare’’

native forests by supplying wood that would otherwise be logged from native

stands.

8 Arrows are scaled to reflect the percentage of the 38 participants for whom this information was

available who had replaced a given land-use with eucalypts or who planned to replace eucalypts with a

given land-use.

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

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In interviews, three questions were designed to elicit comparisons of the value of

eucalypt plantations relative to other ways of utilizing land parcels. First,

participants were requested to rank eucalypts against natural forest and then against

both cattle grazing and cash crops in terms of profitability or potential as an

investment. This allowed for rough estimation of the relative financial performance

of eucalypt plantations. Over half (57 %) of respondents viewed natural forest as

more valuable than eucalypt plantations. 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:

My understanding is that [a eucalypt stand] 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 eucalypt plantations]…Now, the big trees

if you fell one, are worth a lot. And fallen branches are worthwhile as firewood

(Participant G3).

When asked to compare eucalypts to cash cropping and cattle ranching—the two

other dominant economic activities among households in the study area—

participants viewed eucalypts as most valuable (52 %) relative to cattle (27 %)

and cash crops (21 %). Though the majority of participants preferred eucalypts,

substantial minorities expressed the view that land devoted to cattle ranching or

cash cropping was more profitable than a eucalypt plantation of the same size. This

is surprising given that all study participants by definition had invested in eucalypt

plantations. The fact that many participants viewed other land-uses as more valuable

may reflect disillusionment with eucalypts relative to other forms of agriculture and

silviculture in the study region.

Fig. 2 Forms of land-use that were replaced by extant eucalypt plantations at the time of planting (redarrows) or to which smallholders planned to convert plantations following harvest of the current stand(blue arrows). (Color figure online)

J. J. Grossman

123

When asked if they wanted to expand or ultimately replant their eucalypt

plantations, 80 % of participants answered affirmatively, suggesting that they were

at least content with the benefits they derived from their eucalypt plantations. Even

when other activities were as profitable as or more profitable than eucalypt

plantations, plantation forestry was still favoured over row crops, cattle pasture and

natural regeneration of native tree species.

Participants’ Views on the Nativeness of Eucalypts

Analysis of participant interviews reveals that eucalypt-owning smallholders have

ambivalent and complex perceptions of the nativeness9 of planted eucalypts.

Though many study participants did not comprehend the idea of species nativeness

or were unsure about whether eucalypts are native to Paraguay, 64 % of those

responding (n = 28; some participants felt uncomfortable answering or were unable

to formulate an answer) believed that eucalypts are native species.10 Semantic

treatment, however, revealed ambivalence over the degree to which participants

viewed eucalypts as Paraguayan species. Even among participants who believed that

eucalypts originated in Paraguay, eucalypt stands were not referred to as yvyrakuera

(‘‘trees’’). Rather, they were called eucaliptos. In Paraguay, widespread bilingual-

ism is complicated by diglossia, the functional separation of dialects or languages

(Edwards 1994). Bilingual Paraguayans use Spanish in formal contexts, with

strangers and foreigners, and in institutional and fiduciary settings. Guaranı

dominates in conversation with family, friends and servants; in the countryside; and

in discourses of the heart (Choi 2005). Study participants code-switched into

Spanish, the national prestige language, from their mother tongue of Guaranı, when

describing eucalypts. This tacit choice reveals the extent to which eucalypt

plantations are seen as valuable and modern, but also as distinct from disappearing,

ancestral native forests.

Though the contemporary eucalypt boom is only about 20 years old, eucalypts

have probably existed in Paraguay since the middle of the twentieth century. Plenty

of time has elapsed for eucalypt species to infiltrate (agro)forestry practices,

partially displace competing forms of agricultural land-use, and, in the minds of

many study participants, share space in a complicated way with ‘‘native’’ plants.

Eucalypts may fail to become biotically naturalized in the South American

subtropics (Muller da Silva et al. 2011), but conceptual naturalization may proceed

to the extent that los eucaliptos eventually become seen as yvyrakuera.

Participants’ Views on Eucalypts’ Environmental Externalities

The most common criticisms of eucalypts pertained to their negative environmental

externalities. In each interview conducted, study participants were asked if they had

9 Trigger et al. (2007) and Chew and Hamilton (2011) explored the wider cultural and ecological

implications of nativeness and provided a framework for the present discussion of exotic eucalypts in

Eastern Paraguay.10 None of the participants, without prompting, identified the country of eucalypt’s origin as Australia.

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

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personally experienced two of the more commonly reported eucalypt externalities:

depletion of soil moisture and inhibition of neighbouring plant growth. Almost half

(45 %) of participants reported that their plantations had made the surrounding soil

drier while 47 % reported that their crops or trees were inhibited or out-competed by

adjacent eucalypt plantations. Interestingly, 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, [eucalypts] kill [native species] (Participant C2).

Empirical research suggests that the story of eucalypt allelopathy is complex.

Many eucalypts are at least somewhat allelopathic, but allelopathic qualities vary

widely within the genus and studies of eucalypt allelopathy are generally confined to

a few species of silvicultural interest. Furthermore, expression of allelopathy

depends on local ecological context and is not uniform across plantation settings

(Ceccon and Martinez-Ramos 1999; Rizvi et al. 1999; Kohli et al. 2006). Zhang and

Fu (2010) concluded that, in conditions of high rainfall or low eucalypt stocking,

concentrations of allelopathic compounds may not be sufficient to make intercrop-

ping infeasible. Root exudate allelopathy was also found to be highly inhibitory of

crop growth in plantations younger than 4 years old, with limited effects thereafter.

Zhang et al. (2010) theorized that this may be because soils neutralize allelopathic

compounds with time. Rizvi et al. (1999) offered a comprehensive review of recent

research assessing specific allelopathic eucalypt-crop species interactions. The

diversity of findings in the literature, as well as the mixed reports of allelopathy in

the study population, suggest that allelopathic effects of eucalypt species when the

species is incorporated in plantations are highly situation-dependent and may be

negligible in many common agroforestry systems in the subtropics.

Eucalypts have been shown to be most suitable for agroforestry when adequate

precipitation ensures that both trees and annual crops have access to adequate soil

moisture (Calder 2002; Ceccon 2005), spacing between rows of trees reduces

competition with crop plants (Pinto et al. 2005; Prasad et al. 2010; Bertomeu 2012;

Paula et al. 2013), and appropriate eucalypt and crop species are selected for

cultivation (Ceccon and Martinez-Ramos 1999; Ceccon 2008). The responses of

participants in the study echoed these findings. About 45 % of plantation owners

reported negative effects of eucalypts on soil hydrology—despite average monthly

rainfall exceeding 100 mm per month for over half the year—and on crop growth,

while the remainder reported positive or neutral effects. Participants in the study

population frequently practiced eucalypt agroforestry, but preferred taungya,

silvopastoralism and other systems that enhance production, allow for efficient

weed removal, and minimize negative externalities—especially those due to

competition between crop species and eucalypts for water. Utilization of systems

such as taungya, silvopastoralism and widely spaced row agroforestry enables

smallholders to avoid the problems of reduced yield due to competition for water or

other resources (Poore and Fries 1987; Couto and Dube 2001) or allelopathy (Rizvi

et al. 1999).

J. J. Grossman

123

In the interview with participant C2, as well as interviews with several others,

smallholders raised the issue of eucalypts’ exotic origins in discussing their negative

environmental externalities. Yet despite these attributions and the widespread

awareness of the potential disadvantages of eucalypt plantations, four-fifths of

participants intended to replant or expand their current plantations. This sustained

enthusiasm for eucalypt forestry despite acknowledgement of its possible

disadvantages speaks to the appeal of growing eucalypts to study participants.

Despite perceived negative environmental externalities and shortcomings relative to

natural forest, pasture or crops that participants associate with eucalypt plantation

forestry, the growing of eucalypts is an economically competitive land-use in sub-

tropical South America (Cubbage et al. 2010). Furthermore, the author’s experience

as an extensionist working in the region suggests that the continuing boom in

eucalypt plantation forestry has furnished the species with the substantial prestige

that often accompanies the introduction of exotic agricultural and silvicultural

species.

Role of Eucalypts in Deforestation and Reforestation

Though participants had ambivalent attitudes toward wood scarcity in their own

communities (Grossman 2012), 93 % of those responding to questions about

deforestation expressed the opinion that it was a problem in their region. One

participant (D6) gave the typical response that:

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 eucalypts reforests, but they always go deforesting.

I don’t know what, what will happen after that.

Most (94 %) of those reporting that deforestation was a problem thought that

planting eucalypts should be considered a form of reforestation. This widespread

acceptance of eucalypt afforestation as reforestation speaks to the complicated

relationship between notions of nativeness and reforestation. Can one reforest with a

non-native species? Most participants would perhaps answer ‘‘yes,’’ if reforestation

is taken to mean the planting of trees in an historically forest-dominated landscape.

However, the acceptance of eucalypt planting as a form of reforestation was not

ubiquitous. One participant (D11) complained:

I don’t like [the way that] the people plant the eucalypts and how is that like

reforestation, because they fell them and they sell them all again, and they

plant again?

The foregoing comment reflects the growing awareness that management of

eucalypt plantations on short rotations consistent with ‘‘fast-wood forestry’’

(Cossalter and Pye-Smith 2003) may not fulfill the environmental goals of

reforestation but also complicates the notion of ‘‘reforestation.’’ Participant

affirmation of the role of eucalypts in reforestation seems, at first, to contradict

the findings that eucalypt plantation forests may not even be considered ‘‘trees’’ or

‘‘forests’’ in the traditional sense by many Paraguayan smallholders. Yet, this

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

123

paradox actually highlights the importance of thinking about reforestation as a

process that goes beyond rigid definitions of species nativeness and ahistoric ‘‘wild

nature’’ (Cronon 1996). For most participants, planting stands of eucalypts means

replacing row crops, pastures, fallows or marginal unplanted land with econom-

ically productive forestry or agroforestry systems. Whether the resulting plantations

consist of native or exotic trees seemed important to some, but not all, people in the

study population.

Conclusion

In response to anti-deforestation legislation and the concomitant efforts of

extensionists, smallholder eucalypt plantation forestry in Eastern Paraguay has

emerged as a potential form of sustainable land management (MAG 2011;

Grossman in press). Smallholder plantations play an increasing role in Eastern

Paraguay’s agroforestry systems and its mosaic of competing agricultural and

silvicultural practices. These plantations also shape and are shaped by smallholders’

views about nativeness, environmental harms and benefits, and deforestation and

reforestation. The coincident boom in eucalypt plantation forestry has been

facilitated at all stages by the Paraguayan government, private enterprises and

development agencies. While conducting this study, the author encountered

development workers promoting eucalypts as a source of timber for domestic and

commercial applications, a suitable windbreak species for orchards and row crops,

and a viable form of ‘‘reforestation’’ in the Atlantic Forest region.

Policy Implications

Policymakers and extensionists who wish to promote sustainable stewardship of

forest resources will need to take into account the complex and ambivalent role that

eucalypts play in forestry among rural Paraguayan smallholders. This case study of

plantation-owning smallholders suggests that eucalypt cultivation in the study

population can directly and indirectly remove pressure to convert Eastern

Paraguay’s remaining natural forests to agriculture. Yet it is critical to understand

the complicated role played by this nominally exotic species in rural smallholders’

decisions regarding the sustainable management of natural resources (Trigger et al.

2007; Chew and Hamilton 2011).

Eucalypts can be integrated into smallholder agroforestry (Ahmed 1989; Ceccon

2005), can displace row crops and cattle as a form of land-use, can prevent further

deforestation by substituting for native wood (Sedjo and Botkin 1997), and can

reforest and afforest degraded land. But eucalypts can also be cultivated in

monoculture on converted wetlands and former forests, and then exported

commercially rather than being used to meet domestic subsistence wood needs

(Shiva and Bandyopadhyay 1987; Calder 2002). Based on smallholders’ experi-

ences with eucalypts in this case study, the author’s recommendations for enhancing

J. J. Grossman

123

the sustainability of smallholder eucalypt silviculture are aimed at public and

private extension agencies as well as policy-makers.

Foresters working in public and private11 extension and development programs

often play an important role in promoting eucalypts and determining which of these

models of plantation forestry will dominate in regions such as rural Eastern

Paraguay. It is critical that extensionists encourage the use of silvicultural

techniques that are both sustainable and compatible with eucalypt cultivation (e.g.

silvopastoralism, taungya) over unsustainable or incompatible techniques (e.g.

planting eucalypts in wetlands, associating them with fruit trees) (Calder 2002).

Presently, extensionists and agricultural engineers employed by the Paraguayan

Ministry of Agriculture and Ranching (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganderıa or

MAG) act as the primary agents promoting plantation forestry in rural areas. The

adoption of protocols that favour agroforestry-compatible eucalypt silviculture by

offices of MAG, including the Paraguayan National Forestry Institute (Instituto

Nacional Forestal, INFONA), would direct government personnel to promote more

effectively sustainable plantation development in rural areas. Additionally, depart-

mental protocols must acknowledge potential negative ecological effects (e.g.

drying of the soil) in promoting eucalypts, while raising awareness of techniques

that mitigate these externalities (e.g. locating plantations far from wells) among

smallholders (Ceccon 2005; Bertomeu 2012). To avoid doing so is to risk exposing

economically and ecologically vulnerable smallholders to considerable environ-

mental externalities.

Though Paraguayan environmental policy has generally failed to induce

meaningful progress in sustainable management of Eastern Paraguay’s natural

resources (Yanosky and Cabrera 2003), new forestry laws are increasingly

providing a framework for conservation. Recent legislation has mandated refores-

tation and plantation establishment to compensate for deforestation (Law 536/95 in

1995) and forbidden the clearing of all forested land in Eastern Paraguay (Law

3663/08 in 2008). The findings presented above suggest that eucalypt silviculture

can be integrated responsibly into this national discourse on forest resource

management. It is important that policies and programs targeting smallholders

incorporate clear definitions of ‘‘nativeness’’ and the differences between refores-

tation and afforestation (as in Trigger et al. 2007). Additionally, policy should

promote the replacement of marginal parcels of row crops and pasture with

eucalypts in order to avoid the loss of natural ecosystems (Siry et al. 2005).

Encouraging establishment of eucalypts in marginal fields and pastures would

encourage the trend documented in this study of conversion of already-cultivated

land (rather than forest) into eucalypt plantations (Fig. 2).

While these recommendations are context-specific, they also provide a frame-

work for the modification of smallholder-oriented forestry policies and extension

programs through the incorporation of easily obtainable local knowledge. Future

exploration of non-plantation owners’ attitudes toward eucalypts and of longer-term

11 Though the discussion here focuses on public extension, development work performed by non-

government organizations and foreign governments has also contributed considerably to the popularity of

eucalypt plantation forestry in Eastern Paraguay. Therefore, recommendations for public, Paraguayan

extension agencies should also be extended to these organizations.

A Multiple Case Study of Plantation Owners in Eastern Paraguay

123

interest in and preferences regarding eucalypts could enhance this framework and

correct deficiencies in this work. By promoting eucalypts in a strategic, informed

way, policy-makers and foresters can make the most of an opportunity to support

sustainable forest resource management in the imperiled Atlantic Forest and

socioecologically similar regions.

Acknowledgments The author wishes to foremost acknowledge the hospitality, openness and insight of

the Paraguayan study participants. Additionally, the research described above was carried out with the

assistance of colleagues in the US Peace Corps—Paraguay (Elizabeth Cabrera, Heather Clark, Sean

Conway, Sybil England-Markum, Leah Gourlie, Greg Cooper, Matt Nesheim, Brian Pattullo and Leah

Roberts) and the University of Washington School of Forest and Environmental Sciences (Ivan Eastin).

The author was supported by a Lockwood Fellowship (University of Washington School of

Environmental and Forest Sciences). Cyrus O’Brien and Emma Nolan-Thomas provided especially

helpful feedback, as did two anonymous reviewers, and journal editors Brett Butler and Steve Harrison.

Appendix

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Table 2 Description of households from which interview excerpts were drawn

Household

code

Household

size

Parcel size

(ha)

Owning

cattle

Growing cash

crops

Commercializing

eucalypts

C2 8 110.0 Yes Yes Yes

D6 5 17.5 No No Yes

D11 7 27.0 Yes No Yes

E4 6 10.0 Yes Yes Yes

G3 4 38.0 Yes Yes No

H3 5 5 No No No

H6 4 10 Yes Yes No

Household

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Eucalypt

agroforestry

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eucalypt

Believing

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are native

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H6 0.48 Taungya/fruit tree Unknown No Yes

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