Encountering the burn: Prescribed burns as contact zones

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin R Sutherland

Encounters with fire and landscapes that burn have the potential to be both disastrous and life-giving events. In Canadian national parks, where a century of fire suppression has ruled human encounters with fire adapted landscapes, fire managers and ecologists are eagerly returning fire to diverse ecosystems in the hopes of building healthier ecosystems and reducing the risk of larger wildfire events. Ongoing changes to park policy have made new relationships with fire possible on these federal lands. Prescribed burns, whereby fire is applied to the landscape by park managers, is one such emerging encounter made possible by these policy changes. By reconceptualizing the burn as a process constituted by encounters, in what Mary Louise Pratt would call a contact zone, we gain insight into how thinking and working with fire requires an attention to how humans and more-than-humans encounter one another and the institutional settings which narrate and often constrain these encounters. In the case of Parks Canada’s fire program, this tool of active management, and an alternative to full-suppression, illustrates how thinking and working with fire consists of a set of encounters which take place at both an institutional and embodied scale.

2009 ◽  
Vol 404 ◽  
pp. 61-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael N. Morgan ◽  
V. Baines-Jones

The delivery of grinding fluid to the contact zone is generally achieved via a nozzle. The nozzle geometry influences the fluid velocity and flow pattern on exit from the nozzle orifice. It is important to the efficiency of the process and to the performance of the operation that the fluid is delivered in a manner that ensures the desired jet velocity has adequate coverage of the contact zone. Often, assumptions about adequate coverage are based on visual inspections of the jet coherence. This paper provides new insight into the internal nozzle flows and the coherent length of a wide range of nozzle designs. The work presents a new analytical model to predict coherent length which is shown to correlate well with measured data from experiment. Recommendations are given to guide a user to optimal design of nozzles to ensure adequate fluid supply to the contact zone.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Johanna Skibsrud

This essay explores the space of contact between languages–particularly that of French and English–within Erin Mouré’s recent collection of poetry, O Cidadán. The following discussion demonstrates the manner in which a tangible place for each language, without appropriating one into another, is created on the page. Drawing on the writings of Mary Louise Pratt and Jacques Derrida, I argue that instead of defining the language interaction, or translating one language into another, Mouré constructs a "contact zone" where deferring/differing spaces of language intersect and are made "visible" and are "touched."


2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Paragi ◽  
Dale A. Haggstrom

Abstract Fire suppression and limited timber markets presently hinder maintenance of the early successional broad-leaved forest for wildlife habitat near settlements in interior Alaska. During 1999ߝ2003, we evaluated the efficacy of prescribed burning, felling, and shearblading (with and without debris removal) to regenerate quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). Treatments were conducted largely during the dormant period for aspen: prescribed burns in mid-May and mechanical treatments in late August through early April. Prescribed burns on loess hills produced 40,900ߝ233,000 stems/ha by the second growing season. Low relative humidity, slope of more than 10°, southerly aspect, and juxtaposition to open areas produced fire behavior adequate to ensure top killing and vigorous sprouting response. Felling by chainsaw on loess hills produced 34,800ߝ89,800 stems/ha, whereas dozer shearblading on glacial outwash (loam over gravel) produced 74,200ߝ209,200 stems/ha (cleared portions and windrows combined) and a sandy loam floodplain produced 31,400ߝ64,800 stems/ha. Pushing debris into windrows or scraping thick moss allowed warmer soils and produced greater sprouting on cleared sites relative to sections where debris or moss remained. Mechanical treatments were 25ߝ75% of current prescribed fire costs, but debris accumulation may hinder access by browsing species and attract terrestrial predators of gallinaceous birds.


2020 ◽  
pp. 088626052092186
Author(s):  
Crystal J. Giesbrecht

This qualitative study adds to the relatively small body of research on the workplace impact of intimate partner violence (IPV), provides further insight into the various ways that IPV impacts survivors at work, and offers recommendations for improving the workplace response to IPV. Twenty-seven participants (survivors of IPV, workers, managers, union employees, and human resources professionals) took part in focus groups or one-on-one interviews. Three themes emerged from the data: the workplace impact of IPV, interventions in the workplace, and IPV policy suggestions for organizations. Recommendations for improving workplace response to IPV are offered, including legislative and policy changes, workplace leaves, and workplace accommodations for workers impacted by IPV. Findings illustrate the need for workplace training and information on how to recognize IPV, how to respond, and referral sources. This article offers suggestions of steps that workplaces can take to support employees who experience IPV as well as improving workplace safety, functionality, and productivity.


Paragrana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-119
Author(s):  
Mario Bührmann

AbstractThis paper explores how the concept of the 'contact zone′ (conceived by Mary Louise Pratt) can be extended by means of an issue which she does not mention: the physical shape and specific corporeal reactions of those acting in cultural encounters. By means of two case studies it will be questioned if and how ethnographers regard their body as an important constituent of 'contact zones′ generated by anthropological fieldwork ‒ and how concepts of performativity may serve to shed light on these particular interactions between the ethnographer′s body and its social environment. Therefore I will pay attention to the records in the diaries and letters of Franz Boas (1858–1942) und Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), since both scholars are wedded with the methodological scheme of 'participant observation′, which specifically claims the physical presence of the ethnographer by means of long standing fieldwork. With a 'performative′ view to their 'fieldwork performances′ it becomes clear that they, certainly without using the term, even regard and utilize their skin as a 'contact zone′: through the corporeal surface and its physical resistance they detect the haptic, olfactory and gustatory qualities of social life. Moreover, a performative′ view to the concept of the 'contact zone′, particularly against the background of this ethnological context, exposes the problem of the seminal methodological scheme of 'participant observation′.


2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Lowry

In the 1990s, policymakers at Yellowstone and Banff National Parks enacted two of the most controversial programs in the history of protected lands. At Yellowstone, the U.S. National Park Service (nps) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (fws) personnel reintroduced wolves into the Yellowstone ecosystem. This program restored a crucial element to the park ecosystem that had been eliminated decades before and not returned since extermination. At Banff, federal authorities imposed strict limits to growth of the town of Banff. This action reversed a policy dating to the park's establishment in the late nineteenth century of allowing and encouraging growth and development of the town within Banff. How did these policy changes occur?


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie M. Lyon ◽  
Heidi R. Huber-Stearns ◽  
Cassandra Moseley ◽  
Christopher Bone ◽  
Nathan A. Mosurinjohn

As demand for wildfire response resources grows across the globe, a central challenge is developing new and flexible systems and capacity to ensure that resources needed for fire response arrive when and where they are needed. Private contractors have become increasingly important in providing equipment and services to support agency wildfire suppression needs in the USA. Understanding the capacity of contracted resources for federal agency fire suppression needs is critical for preseason fire planning and response. Using National Resource Ordering and Status System data, we examined Northwest region engine dispatches from 2008 to 2015. The number of times and days engines were out on assignments increased over the study period, and dispatch centres routinely shared engines within and outside their geographic area. However, in 2015, not all of the available engines were recorded as utilised at peak demand during one of the largest fire seasons in the Northwest. This study provides insight into the ways in which fire managers share important resources such as engines and the information they have available to make decisions during an incident, and raises questions about what the right amount of capacity is to be able to respond in extreme fire years.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 1215-1224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per-Ola Hedwall ◽  
Grzegorz Mikusiński

Protected forest areas (PFAs) are key features of biodiversity conservation, and knowledge about long-term development is crucial in evaluating their efficiency and management needs. Longitudinal data on forest structure in PFAs is uncommon and often from small areas. Here we use data from the Swedish National Forest Inventory to study changes in more than 750 000 ha of PFAs over 60 years. Structures important for biodiversity, e.g., number of large trees and the volume of hard deadwood, including both standing and down wood, have more than doubled. The initial volume of deadwood, however, was very low. The overall tree species composition was stable over time, and only among the largest trees were there indications of a shift towards the late successional Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.). Deadwood increased independent of species, size of wood, and site characteristics. This increase was positively related to the volume of living trees and forest age. We conclude that Swedish PFAs, in the absence of active management and under fire suppression at the landscape scale, develop structural components that are crucial for conservation of biodiversity. However, although tree species composition appears stable, present disturbance regimes in the PFAs are considerably different from those in naturally dynamic forests, which may have implications for long-term biodiversity maintenance.


2001 ◽  
Vol 03 (02) ◽  
pp. 241-272
Author(s):  
EFTHIMIS I. ZAGORIANAKOS

This paper, which is based on a recent research project, offers an insight into the experience of integration of Strategic EnvironmentalAssessment (SEA) within government policy-making in Ireland, and Greater Dublin in particular. This is materialised by means of appraising the degree of integration of the Eco-Audit process with the transport policy-making process of the Irish National Development Plan (2000–2006). The recent establishment of the Eco-Audit guidelines by the Irish government in 1999 is the first attempt to institutionalise a type of policy-SEA in Ireland and one of few internationally. Therefore, it can be seen as a "good practice" case study that could potentially provide the context for transference of experience on SEA integration in similar institutional settings in other countries as well in different decision-making levels within Ireland. The paper concludes that this initiative undoubtedly promotes SEA practice at a sensitive government policy level and provides useful ideas for further SEA integration in the future shaping of the Eco-Audit model.


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