**4. Conclusion, policy recommendations, and research significance**

This chapter describes some of the mechanisms that have hindered adaptive capacity in Chile regarding forest policy and land use. Overall, Chile's case exemplifies how a land use trend can become resilient due to political, social, and economic processes. In the case of Chile, economic and political processes interact in a way that results in a rigidity trap across the social and ecological system. Current political and economic processes act as the "slow" variable and explain the current lack of adaptive capacity of LULCC in Chile.

To prevent rigidity traps, it is key to develop institutional mechanisms that break reinforcing dynamics between politics, power, and profits and foster change, diversity, adaptation, and learning [26]. More specifically for the case of Chile, it is difficult to claim that native forests would become a viable land use, without prior structural changes or some unimaginable surprise. Rather than providing panaceas for afforestation, Chile's afforestation case provides insights about the socio-ecological underpinnings of a short-term increase in tree cover and the implications of its success on adaptive capacity in the long term.

Through a transdisciplinary approach, this research has contributed to the literature on adaptive capacity, socio-ecological systems, and land use transition, providing useful insights for policy makers and for scientific and humanities scholars who want to address current environmental issues without hindering future capacity for adaptation.
