The introduction of fire suppression policies and expansion of exclusionary protected areas (PAs) in East and Southern African (ESA) savannas have engendered a wildfire paradox. Outside PAs, livestock have replaced fire as the dominant fuel consumer. While inside PAs, wildfire intensity has increased due to accumulating flammable biomass. Community-Based Fire Management (CBFiM) is recognised as an alternative bottom-up management strategy to address the wildfire paradox and promote equitable fire governance across conservation landscapes. Yet, there has been little investigation into the implementation and effectiveness of CBFiM across ESA’s savanna-PAs. Here we employ a social-ecological systems framework to develop a systematic map of the published literature on the framing and features of CBFiM across ESA savanna-PAs. We characterise the challenges and opportunities for their design and implementation, focusing on the relationship between governance systems and community participation in fire management. We find that CBFiM projects are commonly governed by the State and international NGOs retaining decision-making power and determining access to savanna resources and fire use. Existing CBFiM projects are limited to communal rangelands and are developed within existing Community-Based Natural Resource Management programmes prioritising fire prevention and suppression. Planned CBFiM projects propose an exclusive early-dry season patch mosaic burning regime to incorporate indigenous fire knowledge into modern scientific management frameworks, but evidence of indigenous and local peoples’ involvement is scarce. To provide equitable fire management, CBFiM projects need to address inequalities embedded in PA governance, persisting anti-fire wisdoms, centralised suppression policies, and account for changing state-society relations in the region.

Late dry-season wildfires in Sub-Saharan Africa’s savanna-protected areas are intensifying, increasing carbon emissions, and threatening ecosystem functioning. Addressing these challenges requires active local community engagement and support for wildfire policy. Savanna burning emissions abatement schemes first implemented in Northern Australia have been proposed as a community-based fire management strategy for East and Southern Africa’s protected areas to deliver win-win-win climate, social, and biodiversity benefits. Here we review and critically examine the literature exploring the design and application of savanna burning emissions abatement schemes in this region, characterising their contextual and implementation challenges. We show that the application of Northern Australian savanna burning methodologies in East and Southern Africa tend to adopt centrally determined objectives and market-based approaches that prioritise carbon revenue generation at the national level. The exclusive prescription of early-dry season burns in African mesic savannas prone to woody thickening can compromise savanna burning objectives to mitigate late-dry season wildfires and their greenhouse gas emissions in the long-term, as well as present multiple biodiversity trade-offs in the absence of formal metrics monitoring species’ responses to changes in fire regime. These features restrict indigenous participation and leadership in fire management, creating uncertainties over the opportunities for local income generation through carbon trading. Findings suggest that future savanna burning applications will need to address asymmetries between formal institutions and local land governance systems, explicitly acknowledging colonial legacies in institutional arrangements across protected areas and hierarchies in agrarian politics that threaten processes of equitable decentralisation in natural resource management. We argue that the effective transfer of the Northern Australian fire management model is limited by a lack of long-term ecological and emissions data, and political and institutional barriers, and hindered by the region’s recent colonial history, population growth, and consequences of rapid climatic change. To provide a community-based strategy, savanna burning schemes need to establish context specific legal frameworks and implement Free, Prior, and Informed Consent to safeguard the roles and responsibilities of indigenous and local people and their distribution of carbon benefits.

Background Late dry-season wildfires in Sub-Saharan Africa’s savanna-protected areas are intensifying, increasing carbon emissions, and threatening ecosystem functioning. Addressing these challenges requires local community engagement and support for wildfire policy. Savanna burning emissions abatement schemes first implemented in Northern Australia have been proposed as a communitybased fire management strategy for East and Southern Africa’s (ESA) protected areas. Here we critically examine the application of savanna burning emissions abatement schemes in ESA, characterizing their contextual and implementation challenges. We argue that the effective transfer of the Northern Australian fire management model in ESA savannas is limited by political and institutional barriers, and hindered by the region’s recent colonial history, population growth, and consequences of rapid climatic change. Results We show that the application of Northern Australian savanna burning methodologies in ESA tend to adopt centrally determined objectives and market-based approaches, prescribe early dry season burns, and assume biodiversity co-benefits. These features restrict opportunities for indigenous leadership in fire management and income generation through carbon trading, and present multiple biogeophysical inconsistencies that jeopardize emissions mitigation potential. We suggest that future feasibility and scoping assessments address asymmetries between policy-relevant institutions and local land governance systems, explicitly acknowledging colonial legacies in institutional arrangements across protected areas and hierarchies in agrarian politics that threaten processes of equitable decentralisation in natural resource management. Conclusions To provide a community-based strategy, savanna burning schemes need to establish context specific legal frameworks and implement free, prior, and informed consent to safeguard the roles and responsibilities of indigenous and local peoples and their distribution of carbon benefits.