Most countries in Africa have adopted national policies that give priority to wildfire prevention through public education and raising awareness. Laws in many countries impose restrictions on the use of fire for shifting cultivation or other land clearing activities and the use of prescribed fire (e.g., prescriptions for early burning). However, the effective enforcement of these regulations varies from country to country.
Three African nations recently initiated major steps toward improved legislation and/or strategic planning of national fire management programmes (see country reports). In 1998, South Africa released the National Veld and Forest Fire Act (von Krosigk 1999). Namibia initiated a national fire management strategy by calling for a Round Table on Fire Management in 1998 (Goldammer 1998, 1999) and preparing national guidelines on fire management (Jurvélius 2000) in accordance with the international ITTO Guidelines on Fire Management in Tropical Forests (ITTO 1997). After disastrous forest fires in early 2000, Ethiopia also convened a National Round Table on Fire Management and drafted a long-term perspective for the establishment of fire management capability in the country.
A general remark by W.S.W. Trollope concerning the state of fire management in Kenya and Namibia is applicable to most African nations:
“Insights into the ecology and use of fire in these countries are very poorly developed at practitioner, scientific and government levels. A possible exception to this in both countries is the conventional wisdom on fire ecology that still exists in the older members of tribal communities. However, virtually no effort is being made to capture this conventional wisdom about fire ecology and it is bound to disappear with time with the demise of these senior members of society. The only viable solution to the problem is for the scientific communities in Namibia and Kenya to develop management orientated research programs on fire. These must be aimed at providing information on the effects of the different components of the fire regime on the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem. This will enable the formulation of ecologically viable controlled burning programs involving recommendations on the type and intensity of fire and season and frequency of burning required for the different valid reasons for burning. Finally these research programs must include the development of simplified techniques for assessing range condition that can be used for assessing whether rangelands need to be burnt or not. Such simplified techniques are required by members of both the advisory services and the land users living in regions where controlled burning is an ecological necessity for different systems of land use.”
A Working Group on Africa, which was set up at the FAO expert meeting “Public Policies Affecting Forest Fires” (October 1998), concluded that it was not in a position to make specific policy recommendations but that it was possible to identify key principles that should guide policy making in fire management (FAO 1999):
• Fire management practises should take into account ecological differences/variations, recognising that in some ecosystems, e.g. the Sahelian annual grasslands, fire should be completely excluded, whereas in others, e.g. moist savannahs, it is an essential management tool.
• Fire management must be an integral part of overall land-use policies and practises.
• Fire is a legitimate management tool in a number of African ecosystems.
• Greater regional cooperation is needed in sharing information and resources and taking joint action in relation to fire and its adverse effects.
• Cultural values and socio-economic realities need to be taken into account in formulating policies for different areas, particularly in communicating information and instructions about fire use and management.
• Community-based natural resource management programs require not only the devolution of responsibility from central government to local communities but also increased support for local decision making, including provision of technical information on the effective management of fire.
