Nearly three years after Chile's Supreme Court ordered a business owner in the central region of Valparaíso to restore a native forest that had been replaced by a vineyard, the government's forest agency, CONAF, is conducting an appraisal of the site. The task will be completed by month's end.

“After the refusal of the defendant to comply with the sentence, the State Defense Council asked CONAF to appraise the work (elimination of cultivated plants and reforestation with native species) to contract a third party to be paid by the defendant,” CONAF regional director Juan Pablo Reyes told Tierramérica.

The sentence was issued on Oct. 26, 2006, and requires planting 42,500 trees of the type found in a schlerophyllous, evergreen, forest: molina (Acacia caven), soapbark (Quillaja saponaria), litre (Lithraea caustica), canelo (Drimys winteri), and to restore the soil and the landscape destroyed across 34.4 hectares.