Seasonal fire management by traditional cattle ranchers prevents the spread of wildfire in the Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract

The use of fire by cattle ranchers is a major source of conflict between conservationists and local communities in tropical savannas. We evaluate the role of traditional pastoral management in wildfire prevention in two Protected Areas within the Brazilian savanna. Finegrain field data from transect walks and interviews were combined with geospatial data at landscape scale to compare fire regimes in community-managed areas with those in governmental-managed areas. Local pastoral management creates seasonal mosaic patterns of burnings performed for productive activities and for deliberate landscape management, i.e., to protect fire-sensitive vegetation and avoid wildfires. Whereas government-managed areas were affected by large biennial late dry season wildfires, community-managed areas with a regular fire regime suffered less damage. These systems are under threat and poorly understood by researchers and environmental managers. In order to improve fire management in tropical savannas, greater understanding of pastoral management practices and their spatiotemporal dimensions is required.

Sharing Multiple Perspectives on Burning: Towards a Participatory and Intercultural Fire Management Policy in Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana

“…Indigenous discourses showed that, in spite of the many socio-cultural, demographic, land, and climatic changes they have experienced over time, the traditional use of fire is still a fundamental sustainable tool for their livelihoods, and a meaningful factor in their cultural identity and social cohesion. Indigenous Pemón, Makushi, and Wapishana peoples in the central Guiana Shield of South America, all maintain the controlled use of fire for agriculture, hunting, and fishing, among other 7 Details of specific plans and actions of each country can be seen in the first report: http://projectcobra.org/participatory-andintercultural-fire-management-network/ subsistence practices [4][5][6][7][8][9]. With very few local differences, these three groups of Indigenous cultures currently use similar fire management techniques to protect forests in the characteristic vegetation mosaic landscape they inhabit in the Guiana Shield.…”

“…Indigenous peoples, for example, have been using fire for millennia, and there is a growing and rich literature on how they use and manage fire, from subsistence activities such as rotation farming and hunting, as well as to control the spread of wildfires. These practices represent an indispensable and sustainable livelihood tool for Indigenous communities associated with their land management and cultural manifestation [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

“…According to previous studies, Indigenous peoples from the Guiana Shield in Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana have a sophisticated and controlled use of fire for agriculture, where biomass burning contributes to nutrient cycling, and soil quality and soil pH level improvement, allowing for crop sowing in forest areas. Fire has also been used by Indigenous peoples for hunting, fishing, to induce fruiting of edible wild plants, and to control high levels of savanna plant fuels, preventing the spread of wildfires into adjacent forests [4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

“…In the same way, in Brazil the Indigenous people have been pointed out as "savage" and "tenacious incendiaries" ("selvagens" and "incendiários contumazes", in Portuguese) [55] who cause great fires. However, more recent research in Canaima National Park, Venezuela and in the savanna of Brazil reveal that Indigenous traditional fire serves as a tool to manage flammable materials and actually decreases wildfire risks [4,5,8,9,53].…”

Firing up: Policy, politics and polemics under new and old burning regimes

“…Landscape scientists from many disciplines highlight the importance of traditional burning of patch mosaics for (1) biodiversity conservation, (2) wildfire control and prevention, and (3) mitigation of carbon emissions in many kinds of ecosystem (Batista et al, 2018;Cordeiro et al, 2014;Eloy et al, 2018;Higgins et al, 2007;Russell-Smith et al, 2013;Welch et al, 2013). Even in fire-sensitive ecosystems, like tropical rain forest, recent changes in fire regimes call for a better incorporation of fire management into environmental policies in light of the much increased vulnerability of tropical forest to fires as they become more fragmented, air temperatures become hotter, and human incursions more varied (Alencar et al, 2006(Alencar et al, , 2015Anderson et al, 2015;Armenteras et al, 2013;Barlow et al, 2012;Vayda, 2010).…”