Global environmental change driven by current socioeconomic activities has the potential to profoundly reshape ecosystems and societies dependent upon them. Chile is particularly exposed to the dangers of climate change, a risk exacerbated by large-scale human intervention in ecosystems vital to water security, such as peatlands, rivers, and surrounding temperate rainforests. Extractive policies during and after the country’s dictatorshipDictatorship allowed the foresting industry to expand, while at the same time being concentrated in the hands of oligarchic families with ties to the authoritarian regime. This has invariably led to sectors of southern Chile being dominated by large swathes of tree plantations, which, as well as their environmental impacts, constrain labor choices for rural communities, and firmly established markets as the primary method of decision-making within landscape management. Contemporary literature has delved into the political aspects of the Chilean foresting industry, albeit without directly linking these political conflicts to the potential weakening of democratic institutions and values in the country. The present study seeks to understand how current political conflicts surrounding foresting may be reinterpreted through the idea of ‘democratic deficits,’ that is to say, researching how phenomena contrary to widespread democratic values—such as accountability concerns in oligopolies, environmental racism and classism, and institutional capture—may undermine the material preconditions necessary for the correct functioning of representative democracy.