Wildfires

BILBAO, BIBIANA ALEJANDRA; STEIL, LARA; URBIETA, ITZIAR; ANDERSON, LIANA; PINTO, CARLOS; GONZALES, MAURO; MILLÁN, ADRIANA; DE MORAES FALLEIRO, RODRIGO; MORICI, ERNESTO; IBARNEGARAY, VERÓNICA; PÉREZ-SALICRUP, DIEGO; PEREIRA, JOSÉ MIGUEL; MORENO, JOSÉ

ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE RISKS IN IBEROAMERICAN COUNTRIES ? RIOCCADAPT REPORT

McGraw-Hill

Lugar: Madrid; Año: 2020; p. 438 - 496

Fire is inherent to many terrestrial ecosystems and its impacts can be beneficial or adverse, depending on human action. Fire is associated with the use of the landscape and its productive systems. Certain ecosystems require fire for their stability (e.g. savannas, oak or pine forests in certain areas of RIOCC countries). Many indigenous and rural communities depend on fire for their survival. However, shifts in the occurrence of fire?in terms of location, fire extent, frequency, intensity and severity, generated directly or indirectly by human action?can lead to fires that differ from those usually expected in a natural regime, causing severe impacts on ecosystems and the goods and services they provide, biodiversity, greenhouse gases sink capacity or production means and national economies. Although some studies show a reduction in the number and areas affected by fire in the last decades at different scales, including global scale, several regions of natural, rural and rural-urban interface areas in RIOCC countries have recorded a greater number of fires, of longer duration, extent and severity, associated in part with climate change and patterns of human-induced fire use. While varying across the region, the fire season is becoming longer and drier and more severe. This, coupled with the rise in human settlements in the urban-rural interface and poor fire governance, is contributing to wildfire events that exceed current management and control capabilities. Few RIOCC countries have robust fire monitoring systems (with the exception of Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico and Chile), much less systems that monitor fire-related impacts. It is vital to invest in environmental, social and economic monitoring, especially in little-studied regions. Monitoring makes it possible to prevent catastrophic effects and the effectiveness of measures implemented in terms of their ability to reduce risks and maximize the sink effect of our forests and wild or managed ecosystems, given that many of the region?s countries include these in their climate change mitigation policies. Current levels of fire incidence in the region are high to very high, with more than 40 million hectares burned annually, representing 7%-14% of the area burned worldwide. The majority of fire ignition causes are of anthropogenic origin, and in lesser numbers ignition is caused by lightning. Livestock activity, land use change through deforestation, and the loss of traditional knowledge of fire use in agricultural activities are the main anthropogenic causes of ignition reported in the region. In terms of burned areas, the most affected countries are Brazil and Bolivia (4% of their territories, mostly savannas and Amazon rainforests), followed by Portugal (1.6%) in the Iberian Peninsula. The estimate of the number of active fires based on satellite records taken during the 2001-2019 period reveals that Guatemala, Paraguay and Honduras lead in terms of the number of fires per unit of land area in the region. None of these countries currently have effective monitoring systems, rendering decision making difficult.Tropical, subtropical, high Andean and Andean-Patagonian rainforests and forest plantations in tropical and Mediterranean ecosystems are the ecosystems most exposed to fire in Latin America. Severe wildfires also increase vulnerability in fire-dependent systems such as savannas and open pine and oak forests. Fragmentation of the landscape due to deforestation and the homogenization of vegetation through plantations, the increase of fuels due to fire exclusion policies, and the abandonment of traditional community fire management contribute to more severe fires and, under extreme conditions, megafires (cases in the Amazonia in 2010/2015/2016/2019, and in Chile and Portugal in 2017). The poorest sectors of society?such as Indigenous and rural communities in Latin America?, the populations of urban-rural interfaces throughout the region, and forest firefighters are the most exposed groups of society to large wildfires occurrence. Children, the elderly and pregnant women are the most vulnerable to the effects of air pollution due to the emission of gases and particles produced by the combustion of biomass during a fire, even in urban and rural sectors located at a distance from fire sites. Despite costly investments in human resources and high technical deployment, firefighting and suppression policies prevailing in the region have not been sufficiently effective. Although fire exclusion and suppression can reduce the area burned, as in the case of Spain, under extreme weather conditions these policies are inefficient given their great technical complexity, high risks for fire combatants and high costs, especially for countries with limited resources in Latin America. Historical international cooperation efforts towards Latin America, in particular those involving technology transfer and training of forest firefighters, are not necessarily adapted to local socio-environmental conditions, and may even place the livelihoods of local communities at risk (such as the ONE-REDD+ [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation] incentive programs). A new fire governance, based on adaptation measures, is urgent to avoid a ?tipping point? for affected natural and rural areas in the region and to reduce large climate migrations, morbidity, and economic losses caused by catastrophic wildfires. There are some promising initiatives for regional cooperation and exchange of local experiences, which are key for the development of adaptation strategies under new wildfire dynamics. These are the cases of the Mesoamerican Environmental Sustainability Strategy (EMSA) to develop fire management policies in Mesoamerican countries, and in South America the PARUPA Network (Intercultural and Participatory Fire Management Network) in South America promoted by Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. At a national level, the Integrated Fire Management program carried out by IBAMA / Prevfogo (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis) on Indigenous lands in Brazil, has represented a significant effort with promising results in reducing the number of large fires and the area affected, as well as the costs of fire control, through the association between fire brigades and Indigenous communities. It is also worth mentioning the significant progress made by Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia for the preservation of traditional fire management practices, which in turn provide food security to local Indigenous and rural populations. All these lay the foundation for fire management paradigm change from fire suppression toward more inclusive and participatory fire management in the region. The current challenges in fire risk reduction for RIOCC countries demand a paradigm shift in national policies for wildfire management. Developing a new vision and capacity for integrated, coordinated and intersectoral fire management instead of simply fire fighting requires the inclusion of multiple perspectives, actors and the retrieval of knowledge and adaptive practices of indigenous cultures and communities living in rural territories. It also requires cooperative efforts of all levels of the state and sectors of civil society that can turn into public policies consistent with a comprehensive and adaptive vision of territorial management in order to build more resilient landscapes and communities. This is even more pressing under more severe and extreme climate settings prone to wildfire events beyond our control.