Social and historical dimensions of wildfire research and the consideration given to practical knowledge: a systematic review

Sousa, Joana; Çinar, Can; Carmo, Miguel; Malagoli, Marco A. S.

doi:10.1007/s11069-022-05460-2

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…The small number of retrieved papers highlights the predominance of biogeophysical research in fire ecology and the limited number of studies focusing on the social dimensions of fire and local knowledges in management (Sousa et al, 2022;Trollope, 2007). Disconnection between physical and social scientific fire research has sustained institutional silos targeting wildfire challenges, such as between national governments and local social processes governing fire use (Kuligowski, 2016;Shuman et al, 2022;A.…”

Section: Literature Identifiedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community‐Based Fire Management in East and Southern African Savanna‐Protected Areas: A Review of the Published Evidence

Croker,

Woods,

Kountouris

2023

Earth's Future

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The introduction of fire suppression policies and expansion of exclusionary protected areas in East and Southern African savannas have engendered a wildfire paradox. Outside protected areas, livestock have replaced fire as the dominant fuel consumer. Inside their boundaries, wildfire intensity has increased due to accumulating flammable biomass. Community‐Based Fire Management (CBFiM) is recognized as an alternative fire management strategy to address the wildfire paradox and promote equitable fire governance across conservation landscapes. Yet, there has been little investigation into the implementation and effectiveness of CBFiM across East and Southern Africa's savanna‐protected areas. Here we employ a social‐ecological systems framework to develop a systematic map of the published literature on the framing and features of CBFiM in this context. We characterize the challenges and opportunities for their design and implementation, focusing on the relationship between governance systems and community participation in fire management. We find that CBFiM projects are commonly governed by the state and international non‐governmental organisations who retain decision‐making power and determine access to savanna resources and fire use. Existing CBFiM projects are limited to communal rangelands and are developed within existing Community‐Based Natural Resource Management programs prioritizing fire prevention and suppression. Planned CBFiM projects propose an exclusive early‐dry season patch mosaic burning regime to incorporate indigenous fire knowledge into modern management frameworks, but evidence of indigenous and local peoples' involvement is scarce. To provide equitable fire management, CBFiM projects need to address inequalities embedded in protected area governance and centralized suppression policies, and account for changing state‐society and intra‐society relations across the region.

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Section: Literature Identifiedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community‐Based Fire Management in East and Southern African Savanna‐Protected Areas: A Review of the Published Evidence

Croker,

Woods,

Kountouris

2023

Earth's Future

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“…Second, more 'powerful' forms of knowledge have become institutionalized, reinforcing entrenched views of fire and existing power relations, and leading to a rigid 'commandand-control' approach to fire management that perpetuates inequities in decision-making processes (Carmenta et al 2011;Roos et al 2016;Smith et al 2016). As a result, efforts to 'integrate' (Bohensky and Maru 2011) local and Indigenous knowledges into colonial systems without sharing decision-making authority can amount to appropriation, such as researchers or managers that extract or utilize placebased knowledge of cultural burning without consent (Mistry and Berardi 2016; Nikolakis and Roberts 2021;Hoffman et al 2022a;Sousa et al 2022). Finally, while the increasing vulnerability of social-ecological systems due to growing negative impacts from fire and climate change (Vink et al 2013;Hessburg et al 2021) can, in cases, catalyze transformative change, these impacts often lead to prioritizing immediate and reactive, rather than forward-looking, research and management.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Guiding principles for transdisciplinary and transformative fire research

Copes-Gerbitz,

Sutherland,

Dickson-Hoyle

et al. 2024

fire ecol

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Background Managing landscape fire is a complex challenge because it is simultaneously necessary for, and increasingly poses a risk to, societies and ecosystems worldwide. This challenge underscores the need for transformative change in the way societies live with and manage fire. While researchers have the potential to act as agents of transformative change, in practice, the ability to affect change is often constrained by siloed and biased expertise, rigid decision-making institutions, and increasingly vulnerable social-ecological systems where urgent rather than long-term solutions are prioritized. Addressing these challenges requires more holistic and equitable approaches to fire research that promote new models of transdisciplinary thinking, collaboration, and practice. Results To advance transformative solutions to this complex fire challenge, we propose four principles for conducting transdisciplinary fire research: (1) embrace complexity, (2) promote diverse ways of knowing fire, (3) foster transformative learning, and (4) practice problem-centered research. These principles emerged from our experience as a group of early-career researchers who are embedded within and motivated by today’s complex fire challenge within British Columbia (BC), Canada. In this forum piece, we first describe the four principles and then apply the principles to two case studies: (1) BC, a settler-colonial context experiencing increased size, severity, and impacts of wildfires, and (2) our ECR discussion group, a space of collective learning and transformation. In doing so, we present a unique contribution that builds on existing efforts to develop more holistic fire research frameworks and demonstrates how application of these principles can promote transdisciplinary research and transformation towards coexistence with fire, from local to global scales. Conclusions In this forum piece, we identify and apply four guiding principles for transdisciplinary fire research. Collectively, these principles can foster more inclusive applied fire research that matches the scope and scale of today’s fire challenge and promotes transformative change towards coexisting with fire.

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Governance drivers hinder and support a paradigm shift in wildfire risk management in Italy

Kirschner,

Ascoli,

Moore

et al. 2024

Reg Environ Change

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Fire is a fundamental social-ecological process, but a combination of changing climate, land use and values at risk is increasing the incidence of large wildfires with high societal and biodiversity impacts. Academic and practitioner understanding is now converging around the need to manage fire risk as an outcome of intersecting governance regimes, comprising geohistorically defined institutions and decision-making pathways shaped by earlier wildfires. We investigate this proposition through a case study of Italy, a country greatly affected by wildfire and characterised by strong organisational, socio-cultural and geographical variation nationally. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study collecting and analysing qualitative data on how different national and sub-national governance procedures interrelate to promote particular risk management strategies, and support or impede adaptive change. Participants in key agencies were consulted across seven nationally representative regions. Findings show a highly fragmented institutional structure, where wildfire policy responsibilities are increasingly allocated to disparate organisations at a variety of scales. Local stakeholder participation has been displaced by this shift to extra-local actors and networks. While institutions are formally committed to adopting a precautionary approach to wildfire risk, in practice, emergency response remains the default choice, as a result of patchy and uncoordinated legislation. Notably, the wider national and international (EU) regulatory context plays a muted role in governing wildfires. We present our results as a novel action research agenda for Italy and southern Europe more generally, emphasising the urgent need to develop new anticipatory systems of wildfire incidence through closer integration of cross-scale governance arrangements.

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Social and historical dimensions of wildfire research and the consideration given to practical knowledge: a systematic review

Cited by 7 publications

References 115 publications

Community‐Based Fire Management in East and Southern African Savanna‐Protected Areas: A Review of the Published Evidence

Community‐Based Fire Management in East and Southern African Savanna‐Protected Areas: A Review of the Published Evidence

Guiding principles for transdisciplinary and transformative fire research

Governance drivers hinder and support a paradigm shift in wildfire risk management in Italy

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