Confronting complexity: fire policy choices in South African savanna parks

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 381 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Bond ◽  
Sally Archibald
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
Fire Policy ◽  
African Savanna ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Ecological Criteria ◽  
Fire Intervals

Changes in ecological concepts and a new focus on biodiversity as a central objective have led to changes in fire policies in South African savanna parks. Prescribed burning using fixed fire intervals is being replaced by systems that promote more variable fire regimes and greater management flexibility. Three policy alternatives have been proposed for Kruger National Park: a lightning fire policy, patch mosaic burning, and burning based on ecological criteria. There is no agreement as yet on which policy to adopt. However there is growing consensus on the use of a management system using 'thresholds of potential concern' to evaluate the outcome of different policies. These thresholds have been established for numerous indicators, help focus monitoring activities, and guide managers on the need for active intervention. We discuss the applicability of the policy alternatives for preventing successional change from savanna to forest and promoting grazing lawns and their associated grazers. We conclude that none of the current policies is universally applicable. A prescriptive program of frequent, high intensity burns will be required in mesic savannas to prevent succession to forests. In arid savannas, fire regimes designed to promote variable fire frequencies and fire sizes would be preferred to maintain greater diversity of grassland swards and grazer communities. The lessons learned from fire policy debates in South African savannas are of wider relevance for managing conservation areas elsewhere.

The contradictory role of fire from the nature conservation perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orsolya Valkó
Keyword(s):  
Nature Conservation ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Effects ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Fire Policy

<p>Fire is a globally relevant natural or anthropogenic phenomenon with a rapidly increasing importance in the era of the climate change. In each year, approximately 4% of the global land surface burns. For effective ecosystem conservation, we need to understand fire regimes, identify potential threats, and also the possibilities in the application of prescribed burning for maintaining ecosystems.</p><p>Here I provide an overview on the contradictory role of fire in nature conservation from two continents with contrasting fire histories, focusing on European and North-American grasslands. I show that the ecological effects of fire depend on the fire regime, fire history, ecosystem properties and the socio-economic environment. Catastrophic wildfires, arson, too frequent or improperly planned human-induced fire often lead to the degradation of the ecosystems, the disappearance of rare plant and animal species, and to the encroachment of weed and invasive species. I illustrate with examples that these negative fire effects act synergistically with the human-induced changes in land use systems.</p><p>I also underline with case studies that in both regions, properly designed and controlled prescribed burning regimes can aid the understanding and managing disturbance-dependent ecosystems. Conservation in these dynamic and complex ecosystems is far more than fencing and hoping to exclude disturbance; but the contrary: disturbance is needed for ecosystem functioning. Therefore, the conservation of dynamic, diverse and functioning ecosystems often require drastic interventions and an unconventional conservation attitude. However, the expanding urban-wildlife interface makes the application of prescribed burning challenging worldwide. A major message for the future is about fire policy: it is crucial to moderate the negative effects of fire, however, properly designed prescribed burning should be used as a tool for managing and conserving disturbance-dependent ecosystems.</p>

Fire Management in Coastal Sage-scrub, Southern California, USA

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
George P. Malanson
Keyword(s):  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Coastal Sage Scrub ◽  
Fire Intensity ◽  
Sage Scrub ◽  
Fire Intervals

Wildland fire management directly affects the forces of natural selection to which plant taxa become adapted. Changes in a fire regime will often result in changes in the relative abundance of particular species, and may cause the extinction of some of them. Life-history characteristics are important indicators of adaptation to recurrent disturbance, such as may be produced by fire. The incorporation of these characteristics in a computer simulation allows of the projection of species abundance under different fire regimes.Through prescribed burning and fire suppression, fire interval and fire intensity can be controlled to some extent. The fire intensity for given sets of fuel, site, and meteoro-logical conditions, representing given fire-intervals, is calculated with the use of a fire behaviour computer simulation. These results are incorporated in computer simulation of the demographic competition of the five dominant shrub species of coastal sage-scrub in the Santa Monica Mountains of southern California: Artemisia californica, Encelia californica, Eriogonum cinereum, Salvia leucophylla, and S. mellifera. The model incorporates resprouting proportions, seedling establishment, and growth, and assumes survivorship rates in simulating scramble competition for space. Foliar cover-values of the five species are projected for nine different fire regimes. Short fire-intervals of the order of 10–20 years, such as might occur under a regime of prescribed burning, may eliminate or greatly reduce some species, whereas longer intervals allow the maintenance of a more diverse community especially of shrubs. Fixed and variable interval-lengths do not produce appreciably different results.This study suggests that prescribed burning at 10–20 years' intervals should not be used indiscriminately to reduce wildland fire hazard in southern California. The fire intervals that will reduce the hazard, may eliminate some dominant native shrub species. A ‘natural’ fire regime which would maintain the natural vegetation while constituting only a minimum hazard to homesites may, unfortunately, be mutually exclusive goals in the coastal sage-scrub of southern California.

Guidelines for ecological burning regimes in Mediterranean ecosystems: a case study in Banksia woodlands in Western Australia.

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A Wilson ◽  
Janine Kuehs ◽  
Leonie E Valentine ◽  
Tracy Sonneman ◽  
Kristen M Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Mediterranean Ecosystems ◽  
Skewed Distribution ◽  
Complex Solutions ◽  
Fire Intervals ◽  
Associated Species

In Mediterranean ecosystems prescribed burning is commonly employed to reduce the risk or intensity of wildfires. As a consequence, a major challenge for conservation land managers is the development of fire regimes that reduce damaging wildfires and are optimal for biodiversity. The aim of this paper was to develop guidelines for ecological fire regimes using the Banksia woodland on the Gnangara Groundwater System in Western Australia as a case study. Development of the guidelines involved the determination of maximum and minimum fire intervals of key fire response species, analyses of fire history records and estimation of ideal age class distributions at the landscape level. Recommendations included a) adoption of a minimum fire interval of 8–16 years, b) implementation of a burning regime to redress the current skewed distribution (60%: 1–7 years since last fire), c) retention of long-unburnt habitats that are significant for species such as the critically endangered Calyptorhynchus latirostris (Carnaby’s black-cockatoo), and Tarsipes rostratus (honey possum), and d) protection for wetlands that can serve as fire ‘refugia’ for associated species, such as Isoodon obesulus fusciventer (southern brown bandicoot or quenda). The guidelines developed provide a model for the development of ecological burning regimes in other similar ecosystems. The implementation of ecological guidelines normally involves incorporation into fire management planning by fire agencies and often entails complex solutions to conflicting aims. The guidelines are thus valuable for ecologists and land managers, especially in light of an expected significant increase in global fire activity as a consequence of predicted climate change.

Remote sensing of fire regimes in semi-arid Nusa Tenggara Timur, eastern Indonesia: current patterns, future prospects

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohan Fisher ◽  
Wilfrida E. Bobanuba ◽  
Agus Rawambaku ◽  
Greg J. E. Hill ◽  
Jeremy Russell-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Hotspot Detection ◽  
Fire Policy ◽  
Eastern Indonesia ◽  
Semi Arid

Substantial areas of eastern Indonesia are semi-arid (with a pronounced dry season extending from April to November) with extensive areas of uncultivated vegetation dominated by savanna grasslands and woodlands. These are highly fire-prone, despite high population densities reliant on intensive subsistence agriculture and an official national fire policy that prohibits all burning. To date, no regional studies have been undertaken that reliably assess the seasonal extent and patterning of prescribed burning and wildfire. Focusing on two case studies in east Sumba (7000 km2) and central Flores (3000 km2) in the eastern Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, the present paper addresses: (1) the efficacy of applying standard remote sensing and geographic information system tools as developed for monitoring fire patterns in savanna landscapes of adjacent northern Australia, for (2) describing the seasonal patterning of burning at village and broader regional scales in 2003 and 2004. Despite recurring cloudiness, which significantly affected daily fire detection of ‘hotspots’ from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors, fire mapping from Landsat imagery was undertaken successfully to reveal: (1) fires burnt an annual average of 29% of eastern Sumba (comprising mostly grassland savanna), and 11% of central Flores (with large forested areas); (2) most fire extent occurred in savanna grassland areas, and significantly also in cultivated lands and small remnant patches of forest; (3) most fire activity occurred under harsh, late dry season conditions; and (4) while the great majority of individual fires were less than 5 ha, some late dry season fires were hundreds of hectares in extent. The potential routine application of different image sensors for fire mapping and hotspot detection is considered in discussion.

South African road reserves: valuable conservation areas?

1992 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 69
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Conservation Areas

scholarly journals The influence of prescribed fire on the extent of wildfire in savanna landscapes of western Arnhem Land, Australia

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen F. Price ◽  
Jeremy Russell-Smith ◽  
Felicity Watt
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Prescribed Fire ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Arnhem Land

Fire regimes in many north Australian savanna regions are today characterised by frequent wildfires occurring in the latter part of the 7-month dry season. A fire management program instigated from 2005 over 24 000 km2 of biodiversity-rich Western Arnhem Land aims to reduce the area and severity of late dry-season fires, and associated greenhouse gas emissions, through targeted early dry-season prescribed burning. This study used fire history mapping derived mostly from Landsat imagery over the period 1990–2009 and statistical modelling to quantify the mitigation of late dry-season wildfire through prescribed burning. From 2005, there has been a reduction in mean annual total proportion burnt (from 38 to 30%), and particularly of late dry-season fires (from 29 to 12.5%). The slope of the relationship between the proportion of early-season prescribed fire and subsequent late dry-season wildfire was ~–1. This means that imposing prescribed early dry-season burning can substantially reduce late dry-season fire area, by direct one-to-one replacement. There is some evidence that the spatially strategic program has achieved even better mitigation than this. The observed reduction in late dry-season fire without concomitant increase in overall area burnt has important ecological and greenhouse gas emissions implications. This efficient mitigation of wildfire contrasts markedly with observations reported from temperate fire-prone forested systems.

scholarly journals Peace parks in Southern Africa: bringers of an African Renaissance?

2005 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marloes van Amerom ◽  
Bram Büscher
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Conservation Areas ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
African Renaissance ◽  
Utmost Care ◽  
Peace Parks

The pursuit of an African Renaissance has become an important aspect of regional cooperation between South Africa and its neighbours. Transfrontier conservation areas, or ‘Peace Parks’ as they are popularly called, have been identified as key instruments to promote the African Renaissance dream, and are increasingly advocated and justified on this basis. By fostering joint conservation (and tourism) development in Southern Africa's marginalised border regions, Peace Parks are claimed to further international peace, regional cooperation and poverty reduction, and thus serve basic ideals of the African Renaissance. This article critically explores this assumption. Using the joint South African-Mozambican-Zimbabwean Great Limpopo Park as a case study, it argues that in reality the creation of Peace Parks hardly stimulates and possibly even undermines the realisation of the African Renaissance ideals of regional cooperation, emancipation, cultural reaffirmation, sustainable economic development and democratisation. So far, their achievement has been severely hindered by domination of national interests, insufficient community consultation, and sensitive border issues such as the illegal flows of goods and migrants between South Africa and neighbouring countries. Furthermore, exacerbation of inter-state differences induced by power imbalances in the region, and harmonisation of land use and legal systems across boundaries, are increasingly becoming sources of conflict and controversy. Some of these problems are so severe, we conclude, that they might eventually even undermine support for African Renaissance as a whole. Utmost care is thus required to optimally use the chances that Peace Parks do offer in furthering an African Renaissance.

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