0820-B3
Mike Jurvélius 1
The outbreak of large-scale forest fires in many regions of the world in the 1990s focused political, public and international attention on the need to address forest fires not only through emergency responses but also through developing and implementing policies to reduce the occurrence and mitigate the effects of wildfires. In response to rising needs, FAO is helping to build fire management capabilities and is supporting member countries in reducing the adverse effects of fires such as the loss of lives and property, the destruction of vegetation cover, the loss of natural renewable resources, degraded habitats, soil erosion and atmospheric pollution.
Although national data on forest fires are available from some countries, information on their occurrence and extent is still very poor, making it difficult to estimate impacts and to make recommendations on the use of fires in forest ecosystems.
In seeking solutions, countries and donors have historically emphasized fire suppression rather than addressing the underlying causes of fire, more than 95% of which are human induced. Agencies such as FAO are recommending the development of national legislation and guidelines, and of activities that focus on integrated and community-based fire management, involving a wide range of stakeholders. Understanding of fire ecology and fire management regimes also needs to be improved so that strategies can be developed to better use fire as a tool to manage forests and vegetation.
To facilitate the exchange of information and know-how at global and regional levels, fire networks are being strengthened and new ones established. They are helping to disseminate information on techniques and alternative approaches in forest fire management, on the availability of human and technical support, and on potential collaborators.
Every year large areas of savanna-type mixed forest and grassland formations are affected by fires, particularly in Africa and South America. These fires were earlier, in many areas, considered as part of the natural fire cycle and their negative aspects were largely ignored.
With increasing awareness of the importance of safeguarding valuable resources and environmental values and the need to consider long-term sustainability instead of short term gains, the problem of forest wildfires has risen over the past years to the forefront of political and public awareness.
Fire is also a permanent threat to forests in sub-temperate and temperate zones of North Africa and South America.
When large fires burned 3.6 million hectares of tropical rainforest in East Kalimantan (Indonesia) in 1983, increased concern was raised as to what actions could be taken to better assess the global forest fire situation and to support sound forest fire management programmes.
Large forest fires have affected China over the years. The largest forest fire which occurred in Heilongjiang province, burned 1.33 million hectares of boreal forest in 1987 (IFFN 2002). Maybe the worst single country struck by fires in the past years was Mongolia, where 22 million hectares of forest and savanna were destroyed by fire in just two years.
According to recent forest fire statistics, large areas also regularly burn in the boreal regions of the Russian Federation and other former USSR states; fires in these areas totalled 9 million hectares between 1996 and 2002. In Canada and USA, more than 18 million hectares burned between 1996 and 2000 (UNECE/FAO, 2000).
The severity of the large forest fires ravaging Australia in 2001 and 2002 and USA in 2002 have brought back the issues already raised as early as 1939 about the need for prevention through the use of prescribed burning in forests as well as in wildland-urban interface areas. The cost-effectiveness of such practises and their impacts, have been subsequently intensively studied and debated (USDA 1999).
Although national data on forest fires are available from some countries the overall availability of information on the occurrence and extent of forest fires is still very poor. It is therefore difficult to provide an accurate estimate of the annual extent of wildfires in forests and other wooded lands. In the majority of countries, baseline data on the socio-cultural aspects of fire is also not available.
The outbreak of large-scale forest fires in many regions of the world between 1997 and 1998 served to focus political, public and international attention on the need to address forest fires not only through emergency responses but also through developing and implementing policies in the forest and non-forest sectors which, directly or indirectly, could contribute to reducing the occurrence and mitigating the effects of wildfires.
The FAO Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (FRA 2000) reported on regional data for the situation of forest fires (FAO 2001). Within its programme on forest fire management FAO, in collaboration with member countries, has also recently collected, analysed and published forest fire data, covering 47 developing countries. Complementary forest fire data for industrialized countries has been published by FAO/UN-ECE (UN-ECE /FAO 2001).
Recently, added attention has been placed on multi- and bilateral collaboration between countries in forest fire emergencies. This type of cooperation is important also in transfer of technologies, the establishment of shared data bases, strengthening policy-making capabilities and development of institutional and legislative frameworks related to issues such as e.g. cross-border fires.
Availability of data is a prerequisite for national policy level action and international reporting. The international fire community will need forest fire data to be able to better estimate the impacts of fire and to make recommendations on the use of fire and natural fire regimes in forest ecosystems.
International organizations and agencies collaborate within the framework of the UN Forum on Forests, supported by discussions and coordination of action within the framework of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests.2
The overall goal of FAO's programme in forest fire management is to help build national capacities and to support member countries to reduce adverse effects of fires such as loss of human lives and property, the destruction of vegetation cover, loss of valuable natural renewable resources and degradation of habitats for plants and animals leading to threats to biological diversity, soil erosion, smoke, haze atmospheric pollution and contribution to forestry and climate change.
Over the past years, FAO has provided support to a number of member countries in strengthening policy dialogue, the collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of data, exchange of information and know-how, and the development of methodologies and strategies related to early warning, prevention, management, control and remedial action and rehabilitation following forest fires. FAO works in close collaboration with, and through, national institutes in member countries, and with concerned international partners. FAO's mandate and role is not to participate in forest fire fighting work proper, although the Organization can support emergency action by national and other international agencies or mechanisms more suited to carry out such work, but through the provision of logistical and technical guidance, as applicable.
The United Nations International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) and the Joint United Nations OCHA/UNEP (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) are mandated to coordinate action to combat large international fires. Recently the INSARAG has, however, been requested to limit their activities to urban areas. An international solution will need to be worked out to solve the problems of international support to rural forest fire emergencies.
One of the areas that FAO has been recently supporting countries to develop is the capacity to monitor terrestrial ecosystems in a holistic manner. The Global Observation of Forest and Land Cover Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) programme of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) will enable countries to carry out fire monitoring and fire mapping, thus improving their ability also to meet reporting commitments at international level.
Following a meeting on Public Policies Affecting Forest Fires held in 1998 (FAO 1998), FAO in collaboration with ITTO organized an Expert Meeting on Forest Fires in March 2001 (FAO 2001). This Expert Meeting passed a number of recommendations which were subsequently endorsed by the 15th Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO). Follow-up action by FAO has included a review and analysis of existing International Forest Fire Agreements, and the documentation of information on related legal aspects. Based on this work, common components of international and bilateral forest fire agreements were identified, and guidelines were drawn up to guide countries that wished to establish similar agreements elsewhere.
The Inter-Agency Task Force Working Group on Wildland Fire (in which FAO is a member), together with the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC), has recently published a document on the Status of Building Regional Wildland Fire Networks (Goldammer 2002).
The first such a Regional Wildland Fire Network which was formally launched was `Afrifirenet', which was initiated in July 2002. Sixteen countries and a number of NGOs are actively engaged in policy dialogue through this network.
Other Regional Wildland Fire networks were launched in: South-East Asia, North America, the Baltic, South and Central America, Austral-Asia, Europe (leading to the establishment of a combined Fire/Hazard/Relief organization), the Balkans and Central Asia.
FAO is actively disseminating forest fire information to member countries and the international forest fire community through the above Regional Wildland Fire Networks and other mechanisms and the National Focal Points identified through them. Network members are drawn upon to support efforts to provide technical assistance and enhance forest management capabilities of participating countries, exchange and disseminate information, guide countries in issues related to forest fire legislation, policy, and planning and to provide information underpinning fire awareness and education. A need was identified to establish Centres of Excellence for specialized training in strategies, procedures and techniques to be used in the development of "second generation" models for Community Based Fire Management (CBFiM) practises. In this regard, it was proposed that the Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC) based at the Kasetsart University in Thailand act as the training centre for the Asia/Pacific region. A recommendation was also passed within the framework of the `European Open Partial Agreement on the Prevention of, Protection Against and Organization of Relief in major Natural and Technological Disasters; Major Hazard Agreement (EUR-OPA)', to establish a European Fire Training Centre. This Center will commence its operations in Bonn, Germany in 2003.
A proposal has also been made to look into the possibility of establishing a Centre of Excellence for Africa in 2003, with headquarters in the Republic of South Africa (RSA).
The Regional Wildland Fire Networks mentioned above will help disseminate information on techniques and alternative approaches in forest fire management, availability of support in human and technical resources, and potential collaborators which may be able to provide specific information, e.g. research data and findings underpinning action in the field.
As an example, data on species diversity following burning in 48 forest plots covering 29 hectares was collected in Finland between May and August 2002 (Heikkilä 2002). This research effort was a joint activity between more that 25 teams of fire researchers from within and outside of the European Union. The study will serve as a source of information on fire behaviour and susceptibility of forests to fire, and will help improve overall understanding of fire ecology and fire management regimes in Boreal forests.
Data on biological diversity and other related information will be collected from the above plots for many years to come and the data will be shared with interested parties all over the world.
Several websites of forest fire information are available on global scale. The GFMC website contains back issues of the International Forest Fire News, including country notes, including information provided by countries on forest fires from 1990 to 2002. The FAO journal Unasylva (available on the web3 and on CD-Rom), has published information on forestry, including articles on forest fires, since 1947.
At the World Conference on Land and Forest Fire Hazards held in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in June 2002, two significant events opened the path for improving cooperation in fire management between countries in the ASEAN region and at international level. In this Conference, the ASEAN countries signed the legally binding, "Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution". It was also recommended that the ASEAN nations, with support from the GFMC, establish a South East Asian Wildland Fire Network, coordinated by the Secretariat of the ASEAN.
Some countries, for example Namibia, have developed national capacities to carry out fire scar mapping. In the case of Namibia, this included enhancing the ability to monitor the effectiveness of fuel breaks, and to monitor cross-border fires with neighbouring countries (Angola, Zambia, and Botswana). There is also close collaboration on cross-border fire issues between Botswana and Namibia since 1995. Namibia, further, pioneered the development of strategies for the large scale involvement of local- and traditional authorities and communities in the management of forest fires; activities in this regard involve presently an area of several million hectares. Finally, Namibia piloted the development of its own National Guidelines for Forest Fire Management, the first ones prepared by a country in Africa. These Guidelines combine all fire, forest and emergency response legislation under one umbrella, under the management of a Fire Management and Control Task Force, headed by the Director of Forestry.
The close collaboration evidenced over the past years between FAO, UNEP, ITTO, GFMC, CIFOR, IUCN, WWF and others, should be continued and expanded.
The FAO/ECE/ILO Team of Specialists on Forest Fire is disseminating global fire information through the International Forest Fire News (IFFN). This publication has for years been a major means of sharing fire management information among planners and managers across the world.
The adverse economic, social and environmental impacts of HIV/AIDS are becoming increasingly evident, and have reached catastrophic dimensions in many regions, notably in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries are facing formidable challenges in attempting to mitigate the impacts. There is an urgent need for the International Fire Community to help countries in distress to develop and implement multi-sectoral strategies to face the multitude of problems which have emerged, among them the expanded use of fire.
The FRA 2000 evidenced severe gaps in presently available global forest fire data. It stressed the need to collect additional data, to be used as a basis for analysing and understanding global trends and recent increases in forest fire incidents. The launching of `Afrifirenet' and other regional networks described above, strengthened opportunities to exchange and disseminate information related to forest management, legislation, policy, and planning, and to address fire awareness and education.
A number of meetings and workshops have, over the past years helped ensure a coordinated approach to the identification of gaps in data, policies and field level action.
The awareness has been growing at both national and international level, that too much effort had been spent on the symptoms of fire rather than on the causes of fire. It has been increasingly stressed that fire management policies and guidelines cannot rely on technological solutions only, and that technical solutions cannot be separated from the social context.
Therefore, there is a need for developing proactive fire models for predictable ignition (ignition caused by daily human activities) practised in e.g. land clearing activities, (including prescribed burning), and for community and multi-stakeholder involvement in the management of fires (ITTC 2002). These models need to be complemented by data from socio-cultural and socio-economic research into underlying causes of fire; direct and indirect impact of fires on communities, impact of traditions on various uses of fire, attitudes, and values related to the use of fire and burning.
In many developing countries, fire suppression activities involving local communities are shown in media as a fugal and in-effective effort, where barefooted local people are shown trying to suppress fires by using tree branches. Because of the radiation of heat from any burning fire, it is not humanly possible to attack fires directly without supplying the people with proper hand tools. The local manufacturing of fire hand tools should therefore be incorporated in any fire management efforts, and misinformation of the kind above should be stopped.
International and national programmes on fire awareness are to date lacking in gender specific information on who actually is carrying out the controlled burning or causing the fires. Particularly when considering the HIV pandemic, there is an urgent need to collect national gender aggregated fire data so that issues involved can be better understood and malpractices corrected through providing alternatives to local populations.
Providing data to fill the above gaps in knowledge can help make fire management efforts more effective and efficient, supporting efforts to promote the sustainable use of fire as a management tool as well as to a decrease in wild fire occurrences.
FAO 1998. Meeting on Public Policies Affecting Forest Fires. Forestry Paper 138, 369 pp.
FAO 2001. Forest Resources Assessment (FRA-2000). Main Report. Forestry Paper 140. FAO, Rome, Italy. 479 pp. http://www.fao.org/forestry/foris/webview/forestry2/index.jsp?siteId=101&langId=1
FAO 2001. Report on Forest Fire Management: FAO/ITTO International Expert Meeting 21 pp.
FAO 2002. Report on Legal Frameworks for Forest Fire Management: International Agreements and National Legislation. Rome, Italy. 59 pp.
Goldammer, J. 2002. ISDR Inter-Agency Task Force Working Group on Wildland Fire and GFMC. Status of Building Regional Wildland Fire Networks, Freiburg, Germany. 21 pp.
Heikkilä, T. 2002. Preliminary draft report on burning of sample plots, as well as tentative Report on the susceptibility of these sample plots to fire (in Finnish) Helsinki, Finland 7 pp.
IFFN 2002. International Forest Fire News; (ECE/FAO) No 26 January-June 2002. 113 pp. http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/iffn/iffn.htm)
ITTC 2002. International Tropical Timber Council, Report - 33. Vol. 24, No 11, 2002. Committee on Reforestation and Forest Management; POLICY ISSUES: Forest fires; Community-based approaches; a tool for sustainable forest management (SFM) to solve socio-cultural causes of fires.
RECOTFC 2000. Report from the International Workshop on Community Based Fire Management; Training and Workshop series 2001/3. Bangkok, Thailand. 46 pp.
Rowell, A. & Moore P. 1999: WWF/IUCN Global Review of Forest Fires: Gland, Switzerland. 64 pp.
UN-ECE/FAO 2001. Timber Bulletin: Forest Fire Statistics 1998-2000. ECE/TIM/BULL/54/4 Volume LIV No.4. 21pp.
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) 1999. Proceedings: of the Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning, and Policy: Bottom Lines. General Technical Report, PSW-GTR-173. 332 pp.
1 Forestry Officer (Forest Fire Management), Forest Resources Development Services, Forest Resources Division, Forestry Department, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100, Rome, Italy. [email protected]
2 For information on the UNFF, see: http://www.un.org/esa/forests/
For information on the CFP, see: http://www.un.org/esa/forests/cpf.html