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Fire plays a vital role in maintaining many ecosystems and the local communities that depend on them for clean water, food, shelter and other natural resources. Rural peoples around the world use fire to clear land for agriculture, improve access and habitat for hunting, and kill pests. On the other hand, too much, or the wrong kind of fire can be a serious threat to some ecosystems and to people. In order to develop effective conservation strategies, we have to understand the relationships among fire, ecosystems and people. The latest global assessment on fire conditions presents the most comprehensive study to-date of the changing role of fire around the world.
Key findings from the report, entitled Fire, Ecosystems and People: Threats and Strategies for Global Biodiversity Conservation, include:
- More than half of the world’s ecoregions studied (53%) depend on the existence of fire to maintain healthy plants and animals and related natural resources upon which people depend, such as clean water.
- In 61% of lands assessed, the natural fire conditions were degraded or very degraded, with fire behaving significantly differently compared to its natural role. In only about 25% of the terrestrial world is fire behaving similarly to its ecological role.
- The report identifies urban development, agriculture, fire exclusion and climate change as the main factors contributing to altered fire behavior.
The changing behavior of fire threatens both people and nature.
The exclusion of fire from fire-dependent ecoregions can harm habitats and species which need fire to thrive. The resulting build up of vegetation and brush caused by excluding fires is increasing the incidence of burns that are more intense, harder to control and put communities and fire fighters at risk. In areas not equipped to survive fires, such as moist tropical forests, human caused fires are having an equally devastating impact.
The report findings emphasize that impacts of fire need to be addressed from social, economic and environmental perspectives. Integrated Fire Management provides a framework through which governments, land agencies and communities can best address the presence of fire in their landscapes.
This research is ongoing and is sponsored by the Global Fire Partnership, which includes The Nature Conservancy, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), WWF and the University of California Berkeley's Center for Fire Research and Outreach.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Royalty-Free/CORBIS (Kakadu prescribed burn); Photo © Penny Tweedie/CORBIS (traditional fire use); Mark Godfrey/TNC (longleaf pine regeneration); Global Fire Partnership (map of fire-dependent and fire-sensitive ecosystems).
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