Fostering collective action to reduce wildfire risk across property boundaries in the American West

Abstract

Large-scale, high-severity wildfires are a major challenge to the future social-ecological sustainability of fire-adapted forest ecosystems in the American West. Managing forests to mitigate this risk is a collective action problem requiring landowners and stakeholders within multi-ownership landscapes to plan and implement coordinated restoration treatments. Our research question is: how can we promote collective action to reduce wildfire risk and restore fire-resilient forests in the American West? To address this question we draw on collective action theory to produce an environmental public good (fire-resilient forests), and empirical examples of collective action from six projects that are part of the US Forest Service-Natural Resources Conservation Service Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership. Our findings are based on qualitative, semi-structured interviews conducted with 104 individuals who were purposively selected to represent the diverse stakeholders involved in these projects. Fostering collective action to restore fire-resilient forests entails getting as many landowners (especially large landowners) to participate in wildfire risk reduction as possible to increase its areal extent; and landowner coordination in planning and implementing strategicallydesigned restoration treatments to optimize their effectiveness. We identify factors that enabled and constrained landowner participation and coordination in the Joint Chiefs' projects. Based on our findings and theory about when collective action will emerge, we specify a suite of practices to promote collective action for wildfire risk reduction across property boundaries, emphasizing incentives and enabling conditions. These include proactive education and outreach targeting landowners; multi-stakeholder processes with broad landowner representation to develop coordinated management approaches; financial and technical assistance to support fuels treatments on all ownerships within similar time frames; strong partnerships; and using common forestry professionals to plan and implement treatments on different ownerships (especially private lands). Our findings can inform cross-boundary management for landscape-scale conservation and restoration in other contexts.

Effects of ownership patterns on cross-boundary wildfires

“…Our results contribute to a shared understanding of how diverse land management strategies play out on the landscape. This can contribute to better communication among landowners and with the public, and build the trust necessary to work across ownerships 16 .…”

“…We hypothesize that where highly valued resources are concentrated, strong fire suppression policies will result in disproportionally less area burned regardless of ownership and vegetation type (forest or grass/shrub) and that protected areas will burn more than expected given policies that promote resource objective fire. Results from this analysis broadly inform how fire interacts with different ownerships, a necessary step towards informed discourse to support the collective action that is needed to increase forest resilience and the protection of people and valued resources across all lands 16 .…”

“…Private non-industrial forests are prioritized for fire suppression and fuel reduction to protect homes and lives by local, state and federal fire management agencies.The implications of different land management policies and landowner behavior on the spread of wildfire through fragmented systems are not as well studied as wildfire itself 13,14 . Untangling the effect of land ownership and wildfire management policies on cross-boundary fire exposure is needed to develop and implement wildfire management policies that support functional risk governance systems and foster landscape resiliency 4,15,16 . Legislation that authorizes and rewards cross-boundary forest and fuel management 17,18 could benefit from a…”

“…Moreover, ownership is often associated with perceived responsibility in creating and maintaining potential for unwanted wildfire based on how fuel and fires are managed (differently) across diverse ownerships. A common and data-driven understanding of how land ownership patterns affect fire exposure could help mitigate the fault-finding that sometimes characterizes public perceptions of wildfire in multi-ownership landscapes 10,16 .…”

The Impact of Heterogeneous Management Interests in Reducing Social Losses from Wildfire Externalities

“…Nevertheless, landowners may ignore warnings to manage fuels or may engage in minimal fuel reduction efforts due to differences in forest management interests, the costs associated with these practices, and/or misinformation about the importance of such actions in reducing fire damages. Previous research has raised the question of whether policymakers should introduce financial incentives or fuel regulations to induce individual landowners to undertake increased fuel management activities [12][13][14][15][16]. Prior studies have suggested that cost-share programs and fuel stock regulation could reduce social costs and encourage increased fuel management [2].…”