From fire suppression to fire management: Advances and resistances to changes in fire policy in the savannas of Brazil and Venezuela

Abstract

Anthropogenic fire has long shaped landscapes and livelihoods in South American savanna environments. With the growing recognition of the failures of fire suppression policies and the relevance of local peoples’ practices, the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments have begun to shift to fire management policies in savanna ecosystems. Using case studies from protected areas in Cerrado and Gran Sabana, and results from two multi‐stakeholder meetings held in Parupa (Venezuela) and Brasilia (Brazil), we identify advances, resistances and challenges to inter‐cultural fire management in both countries. We show that the two regions host pioneer experiences in collaborative research based on improved dialogue and knowledge exchanges between scientists, institutions, Indigenous and local communities as well as fire management implementation including “controlled” and “prescribed” burnings. However, in some places, narrow understanding of the complexity and historical dynamics of local fire practices and the strong resistance to recognise the value of traditional fire knowledge might restrain effective participation of local communities. We argue that more collaborative research is necessary to support community owned solutions for intercultural and participative fire management in changing environmental and socio‐cultural contexts.

Sharing Multiple Perspectives on Burning: Towards a Participatory and Intercultural Fire Management Policy in Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana

“…layers of historically constructed power relations and patterns of disadvantage and advantage are deeply entrenched in social, political and economic realities on the ground" (p 126). These hierarchical dominant patterns are also found in the territories covered in this study as they underpin historical conflicts about fire use and management between local Indigenous communities and national institutions responsible for natural resource management, revealing the existence of deep tensions and conflicting worldviews [5,27,36,68,69].…”

“…The attendance and participation of Indigenous and institutional representatives along the whole event was successful, thanks, in part, to the trust that the academic organizers (authors of this paper) had previously created with communities through the implementation of participatory long-term action research projects, and capacity-building activities intended to improve their own community solutions to challenges [25,27,28,76,77]. This laid the ground and established a safe space for initial discussions, as participants confidently shared their worries about the risks of wildfires and their impact on forest integrity and biodiversity conservation in their territories.…”

“…Invitations were extended to Indigenous communities and governmental and research organizations who actively participated and took part in previous long-term participative action projects and fire collective experiments promoted by the authors in the central region of the Guiana Shield region of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana [5,19,[25][26][27][28]36] (see also footnote 4 in Results Section). Indigenous communities and organizations belonging to: Pemón's Arekuna, Kamarakoto, and Taurepang peoples from the Gran Sabana region in Canaima National Park, Venezuela; and Makushi and Wapishana peoples from Roraima in northern Brazil and from the Rupununi region in Guyana attended this workshop.…”

“…The Cerrado-Jalapão pilot project developed by the Brazilian Government since 2014 has applied an integrated fire management (IFM) approach, based on consultation with the local community to develop calendars and prescribed early dry-season burn planning in PAs to create patchy landscapes and reduce the probability of deleterious large LDS wildfires. This IFM program represents a paradigm shift from fire suppression to fire management policy in PAs and Indigenous territories, significantly reducing the occurrence of LDS wildfires and restoring the ecological and cultural importance of fire in savanna tropical landscapes [27,28,58]. However, burning vegetation outside reserves is not yet legally permitted [63] and the presence of Indigenous people in PAs is also forbidden or restricted [57].…”

Forbidden fire: Does criminalising fire hinder conservation efforts in swidden landscapes of the Brazilian Amazon?

“…Swidden farmers employ a series of techniques to manage intentional fire and prevent wildfires (Carmenta et al, 2013;Denevan & Padoch, 1987;McDaniel et al, 2005). In tropical savannah regions where fire plays an adaptive role in ecosystem functioning, traditional fire management, often consisting of controlled fires in specified areas, not only maintains ecological integrity, but can mitigate wildfires (Eloy et al, 2018;Sletto, 2008;Sletto & Rodriguez, 2013). While not without conflict, traditional and indigenous peoples living in savannah regions are increasingly recognised for their knowledge of fire management, and have become stakeholders in discussions of fire management policy, especially in conservation areas orientated towards ecosystem protection (Eloy et al, 2018;Mistry et al, 2016;Schmidt et al, 2016).…”