Afforestation in Uruguay

demographic changes and employment in three villages

Abstract

In the context of the important social changes that are taking place in the last decades of the XXth. Century, this paper explores the consequences of afforestation in local population changes and in employment. In the small rural villages that were studied, afforestation has increased population. It has also increased employment but creating low quality (precarious) jobs. The paper also suggests the existence of two different afforestation models: one in which timber is transformed in place resulting in a more balanced development, and another in which timber is exported to other regions to produce cellulose pulp where population changes and employment precarization seem to be worse.