A large share of wildfires in the temperate and boreal zone is human-caused and originates in the context of land use. Vice versa, many land-use systems in these regions are vulnerable to wildfires. Property, health and welfare of people living in these areas are negatively affected by direct and indirect consequences of fire and smoke pollution. Active involvement of the local people has therefore been recognized as a condition for the successful implementation of fire management programmes, especially at the interfaces between or in intermix situations of wildlands, land-use systems and residential areas.
Traditionally, the response of pastoral societies to variable forage availability, e.g. in the savannahs of Africa and the steppes of Asia, was to retain a high degree of mobility (nomadic pastoralism). Regular burning was practised by rural people, to stimulate a green flush of new growth for improving grazing and to aid hunting. Increased population pressure and political changes have contributed to the breakdown of this type of pastoralism in some regions of Africa. In other regions such as in Mongolia a new era of increasing pastoralism has developed as a consequence of the economic collapse of the country after the abandonment of the centrally planned economy.
The main objectives of burning by pastoralists are:
• To burn off unpalatable growth left over from the previous seasons to provide nutritious regrowth for livestock
• To stimulate out-of-season growth to provide fodder when no other fodder reserves are available
• To protect homesteads and property against wildfires.
Wildfires caused by pastoralists that are not purposely set are also a common phenomenon. They originate mainly from campfires (cooking, warming fires).
The regulation of the use of fire, in conjunction with grazing control, is in many cases a thorny issue, and not necessarily in line with ecological requirements. This is particularly true in the dynamic montane and savannah grasslands in temperate Africa, where a substantial percentage of the population is still resident in scattered rural communities, mainly being dependent on local livestock, with sustainable grazing quality and quantity. In most cases some form of compromise is required between fire applied for domestic purposes (such as grazing), and an establishment of ecologically based fire regimes, with careful consideration of fire frequency, interval, season and intensity needed.
4.1.1 Institutional and Social Issues: Integration of Local Communities in Fire Management
In many countries, in the past, the top-down approach to implement management strategies excluded the local people from decision-making. Participation will empower people and give them a sense of ownership in management decisions. New conservation policies in these countries should now be based on the need to adopt more socially responsible methods of conservation management.
Communities dependent on common property resources have adopted various institutional arrangements to manage these resources. The varying degrees of success that have been achieved is dependent largely on the effectiveness of the community leaders (or traditional leadership, e.g. tribal elders), managing the communities under their control.
The underlying concept of Integrated [Forest] Fire Management (I[F]FM), also referred to as Community-Based [Forest] Fire Management (CB[F]FM), is to better integrate both fire and people into sustainable land use and vegetation management systems. The approach is based on the following considerations:
• Reasons: Fire is a spatially and temporally disperse phenomenon; difficult to control centrally, particularly in developing countries; responsibility for control must be brought closer to those who benefit both from the use of fire, and from more control;
• Objectives: Rational, ecologically compatible, sustainable and safe use of fire; with few exceptions no attempt of complete cessation in the use of fire;
• Impediments: Difficulties arising from the definition of responsibility (or 'the community'); the need for complementary policy and legislative change; definition and supply of technical and other support communities need to enable them to assume a central role in fire management;
• Entry points: Definition of mechanisms, methods and policy instruments (incentives) to encourage communities to assume control and “ownership” over fire management;
• Human rationale: Community participation is not just an activity of participating in fire prevention, detection and suppression; but managing fire in terms of the needs of the community, which may include prescribed burning.
Definition and "design" of IFFM/CBFFM approaches clearly depend on the complex configuration of local cultural, social, economic, political and environmental conditions. However, in any case it is required to establish a dialogue and negotiation process among all stakeholders concerned from local to national. IFFM/CBFFM concepts can be successfully realized only if all stakeholders involved in fire management agree on a distribution of responsibilities, decision-making power and resources. The process of negotiation and consensus building requires careful consideration of different perspectives and also the pluriformity of the legal context. Existing rules are often of different and sometimes contradictory origins, e.g. laws and administration rules governed by centralistic legislation, traditional rules that may not have a legal recognition or weakening influence of traditional structures as a consequence of migration resulting in multi-cultural local societies or due to other impacts of "globalisation".
To overcome possible conflicts and deadlock situations - a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches in defining the appropriate integrated fire management strategy - seems to be most effective to build consensus among stakeholder groups at different levels.
In addition, there is a need to establish baseline fire data at national, regional and district levels. This baseline data on fire will assist the national authorities in the preparation national strategies for fire management, including the defining of specific target groups for the national fire awareness programs, based on gender aggregated data.
In the past decade a number of national Integrated Forest Fire Management Strategies (or Action Programmes) have been developed based on multi-stakeholder consensus obtained by national or local Round Tables on Fire Management.
Appendix II provides examples of community participation in fire management and an incentive system for successful fire prevention by communities.
