Salient features and problems of the Reloncaví Sound socioecological system, Chile

A view from social sciences

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the integrated management of public goods and communal use resources in a coastal zone, with a socioecological system analysis of the Reloncaví Sound (Los Lagos region, Chile), which allows for evidence of the accumulative effect of its diverse uses, thus explaining its current environmental fragility. On this matter, some background will be provided to understand the diverse forms of territorialization in this litoral area, which is linked to the deployment of the neoliberal model in Chile since the late 1970s. To that end, in terms of method, the analysis of the Reloncaví Sound socioecological system consists of an operational diagnosis which involves its main adjacent municipalities: Hualaihué, Cochamó, Puerto Montt and Calbuco. This diagnosis is based on the DPSIR conceptual framework, specifically as proposed by Barragán (2014), who includes the dimensions of human welfare and ecosystem services. This model consists of five áreas of analysis: drivers, human pressures, changes in the socioecosystem’s state, impacts on ecosystem services, and influence on human welfare. As a result, the development of a participative strategy is proposed for an Integrated Management of the Reloncaví Coastal Zone, which would allow for options and priorities for adaptation, mitigation and transformation of the socioecological system, as well as to establish a set of criteria for coexistence and practices related to the behavior of social groups in their mutual interaction in this coastal zone.