Fire has always been apparent to some extent in humid tropical forest as an agent of disturbance leading to forest renewal through succession and even to long-term changes in the biome (Flenley, 1979; 1992; 1998). Under climatic conditions of occasional drought there is an element of natural forest fires occurring without human interference (Goldammer, 1992) although this is difficult to establish because the use of fire also links back to the earliest forms of agriculture (Boserup, 1965; Steensberg, 1993). Today however, the role of man is more evident than ever before in understanding the dynamics of fire, humans and vegetation ecology (Uhl, 1998). Perceptions by lowlanders of a loss of ‘forest catchment functions’ due to ‘upland shifting cultivators’ are often strong but these may not be based on a clear understanding of the cause-effect chains involved. For example, most major and capital cities in South East Asia have been built on floodplains at the mouths of rivers, i.e. in areas where occasional flooding is to be expected regardless of the forest cover of the uplands (Hamilton and King, 1983). When floods do occur, however, land use change in the uplands provides an easy scapegoat, especially if the uplanders have a different ethnic and cultural background, as for example in Northern Thailand. These conflicts over land use change in the uplands have reached such an intensity in some areas that basic research findings are not likely to modify the perceptions and standpoints of different stakeholders in the conflict (Van Noordwijk, pers. obs.).
Tag: forest fires
Impact of Indonesia’s Forest Management Units on the reduction of forest loss and forest fires in Sulawesi
The establishment of Forest Management Units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan/ KPH) represents one of Indonesia’s most significant forest governance reforms, covering the 120 million hectares of designated Forest Areas. Sharing features with the Landscape Approach, KPHs are expected to reduce deforestation and forest degradation through improved forest planning, oversight, open access avoidance, and fire prevention and response. This paper assesses the impact of KPHs on the reduction of forest loss, including forest loss due to fire, and the factors that influence this impact (e.g. KPH’s primary objective, deforestation risk). We use remotely sensed data to estimate difference-in-differences models accounting for differences in baseline characteristics and multiple time periods. Our case study, Sulawesi Island, is primarily shaped by smallholder farmer land use, where KPHs can exert significant influence. We do not find evidence of an overall effect of KPHs on deforestation. However, we observe intriguing heterogeneous effects depending on the year, including significantly less deforestation in already-established KPHs during the El Niño years of 2015–16, and a notable impact on the reduction of forest loss due to fire in some early-established KPHs. These findings warrant further investigation.
A stocktaking of knowledge products on peatlands, fires and haze in Southeast Asia, 1990 to 2020
One key activity of MAHFSA is to stocktake existing knowledge products and develop and deploy the knowledge products related to peatlands and fires in Southeast Asia. The stocktake analysis synthesises existing knowledge products by categorising them into five thematic areas policies, tenure, economics, best practices, and monitoring. It also classified knowledge products based on geographical location, focusing on the country and regional levels. Moreover, the study categorises the knowledge products based on the elements of integrated fire management, from prevention, preparedness, suppression, and recovery. By applying text and co-occurrence analyses, the study highlights salient topics of the knowledge products related to peatlands in Southeast Asia. The result shows that thematic areas and knowledge product types vary between ASEAN member states.
Scaling up Community-Based Fire Prevention and Peatland Restoration
Sociopolitical and economic factors have driven and heightened the occurrence of vegetation fires (Purnomo et al. 2017, 2019), particularly in regions where peatlands have become degraded. Fires emit large volumes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, cause significant economic losses, and have detrimental effects on health and other sectors.
A scoping review on the health effects of smoke haze from vegetation and peatland fires in Southeast Asia: Issues with study approaches and interpretation
Smoke haze due to vegetation and peatland fires in Southeast Asia is a serious public health concern. Several approaches have been applied in previous studies; however, the concepts and interpretations of these approaches are poorly understood. In this scoping review, we addressed issues related to the application of epidemiology (EPI), health burden estimation (HBE), and health risk assessment (HRA) approaches, and discussed the interpretation of findings, and current research gaps. Most studies reported an air quality index exceeding the ‘unhealthy’ level, especially during smoke haze periods. Although smoke haze is a regional issue in Southeast Asia, studies on its related health effects have only been reported from several countries in the region. Each approach revealed increased health effects in a distinct manner: EPI studies reported excess mortality and morbidity during smoke haze compared to non-smoke haze periods; HBE studies estimated approximately 100,000 deaths attributable to smoke haze in the entire Southeast Asia considering all-cause mortality and all age groups, which ranged from 1,064–260,000 for specified mortality cause, age group, study area, and study period; HRA studies quantified potential lifetime cancer and non-cancer risks due to exposure to smoke-related chemicals. Currently, there is a lack of interconnection between these three approaches. The EPI approach requires extensive effort to investigate lifetime health effects, whereas the HRA approach needs to clarify the assumptions in exposure assessments to estimate lifetime health risks. The HBE approach allows the presentation of health impact in different scenarios, however, the risk functions used are derived from EPI studies from other regions. Two recent studies applied a combination of the EPI and HBE approaches to address uncertainty issues due to the selection of risk functions. In conclusion, all approaches revealed potential health risks due to smoke haze. Nonetheless, future studies should consider comparable exposure assessments to allow the integration of the three approaches.
Fire management in Ethiopia: past, present, and future
Apart from natural fire cycles in the lowlands and midlands, the past two decades have seen severe wildfires in ecosystems with little or no fire history. Frequency and intensity appear to be increasing with climate change and drought. The emphasis has been on emergency responses, but this must be coupled with more sustainable land use policies, land use plans and practices, and effective sectoral coordination. However, there is no national strategy, and local actors and community members lack capacity to participate. A new, integrated fire management system needs to incorporate real-time early warning and reporting mechanisms, with suitable financing and adequate equipment. Aims-an integrated fire management system For effective forest fire prevention, detection, management and control, this program will develop a strategy that guides the establishment of an integrated, evidence-based national system anchored in multilevel and multistakeholder governance. This will include mechanisms for coordination across sectors and levels of government, with the active participation of resource users, smallholder farmers, pastoralists and the private sector. The Ethiopian Forest Development and the Environmental Protection Agency have formally endorsed the approach and will ensure operationalization. Participatory approaches-to addressing knowledge, capacity and institutional gaps Comprehensive stakeholder mapping identified relevant actors across sectors and levels.
Towards an integrated wildfire management system in Ethiopia. Review of experiences and gaps, and MODIS databased identification of patterns and hotspot areas
Wildfires have been recognized as global environmental processes and ecosystems differ in their sensitivity and response to natural fires depending on their fire history and vegetation characteristics. Most wildfires particularly in the tropics are human induced. In the tropics, traditional use of fire for agriculture and rangeland management has shaped rural landscapes for long. In Ethiopia, it is widely believed that seasonal wildfires have become more frequent, widespread and impact forest resources and livelihoods. The absence of a national fire management system is seriously undermining the nation’s green growth policies, strategies, and ongoing initiatives (e.g., Reducing Emission from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), Afforestation and reforestation (A/R) and the Green Legacy Initiative (GLI)). If not addressed, this may even reverse the gains so far made.
Assessing Sumatran Peat Vulnerability to Fire under Various Condition of ENSO Phases Using Machine Learning Approaches
In recent decades, catastrophic wildfire episodes within the Sumatran peatland have contributed to a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modulates the occurrence of fires in Indonesia through prolonged hydrological drought. Thus, assessing peatland vulnerability to fires and understanding the underlying drivers are essential to developing adaptation and mitigation strategies for peatland. Here, we quantify the vulnerability of Sumatran peat to fires under various ENSO conditions (i.e., El-Nino, La-Nina, and Normal phases) using correlative modelling approaches. This study used climatic (i.e., annual precipitation, SPI, and KBDI), biophysical (i.e., below-ground biomass, elevation, slope, and NBR), and proxies to anthropogenic disturbance variables (i.e., access to road, access to forests, access to cities, human modification, and human population) to assess fire vulnerability within Sumatran peatlands. We created an ensemble model based on various machine learning approaches (i.e., random forest, support vector machine, maximum entropy, and boosted regression tree). We found that the ensemble model performed better compared to a single algorithm for depicting fire vulnerability within Sumatran peatlands. The NBR highly contributed to the vulnerability of peatland to fire in Sumatra in all ENSO phases, followed by the anthropogenic variables. We found that the high to very-high peat vulnerability to fire increases during El-Nino conditions with variations in its spatial patterns occurring under different ENSO phases. This study provides spatially explicit information to support the management of peat fires, which will be particularly useful for identifying peatland restoration priorities based on peatland vulnerability to fire maps. Our findings highlight Riau’s peatland as being the area most prone to fires area on Sumatra Island. Therefore, the groundwater level within this area should be intensively monitored to prevent peatland fires. In addition, conserving intact forests within peatland through the moratorium strategy and restoring the degraded peatland ecosystem through canal blocking is also crucial to coping with global climate change.
Old World and New World collision: Historic land grabs and the contemporary recovery of Indigenous land management practices in the western USA
This introduction to the chapters on community forestry in North America summarises the often-traumatic post-Columbian interactions between Native Americans and waves of immigrants mainly from Europe. The Indigenous land management, mostly by controlled ground fire set in small patches, enables annual harvests of multiple goods and services from the forest. This ‘light touch’ management is sensitive to local ecologies and reduces the risk of catastrophic fires, which have been exacerbated by a century of government attempts to stop all forest fires.
Controlled burns in conifer forests: Decision analysis with the decision Support package
The decisionSupport package (Eike Luedeling and Göhring 2017) implements this as a Monte Carlo simulation, which generates a large number of plausible system outcomes, based on random numbers for each input variable that are drawn from user-specified probability distributions. It also conducts a sensitivity analysis (based on Projection-to-Latent-Structures regression) to highlight uncertain variables that have large impacts on model outputs (Eike Luedeling and Gassner 2012; Wold, Sjostrom, and Eriksson 2001). This approach is useful for determining whether a clearly preferable course of action can be delineated based on the present state of knowledge without the need for further information. If the distribution of predicted system outcomes doesn’t imply a clearly preferable decision option, variables identified as carrying decision-relevant uncertainty can then be targeted by decision-supporting research (Eike Luedeling et al. 2015). This approach is explained in more detail below.