Fire Management: Wildland Fire & Protected Areas

in the Context of Changing Environments:

Latin America & the Caribbean

Ronald L. MyersTallahassee, FL, USA

Caribbean pine savanna

Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve

Honduras

Primary barriers to effective fire management in

Latin American & Caribbean protected areas:

1. Lack of understanding of the ecological

role of fire in ecosystems.

2. Failure to link the underlying causes of fire

problems with appropriate solutions.

3. Counter-productive public policies and

legislation.

4. Capacity & resource issues.

• Failure to understand fire regimes and what is

ecologically appropriate for a given ecosystem.

• Failure to understand & distinguish fire-

dependent vs fire-sensitive (= fire-influenced)

ecosystems & their relationships.

• Failure to distinguish between detrimental &

beneficial fires.

• Failure to recognize the role of human burning

in maintaining desired ecosystem states.

1. Lack of understanding of the ecological

role of fire in ecosystems:

2. Failure to link the underlying causes of fire

problems with appropriate solutions:

• Most fires are ignited by people for the purpose of

maintaining their livelihoods.

• Failure to understand the socio-economic context

in which many of those fires occur.

• Focus on emergency response rather than

underlying causes of unwanted fires.

• Prevention programs that label all fires as bad.

• Lack of integrated approaches to the problem.

3. Counter-productive public policies & legislation:

• Focus on fire suppression & prevention of all fires even in fire-

dependent ecosystems.

• Criminalize fire use.

• Prohibit fire use & prescribed burning in forested ecosystems

and particularly in protected natural areas.

• Misconceptions about, or narrow perceptions of, Fire

Management.

• Lack of integration & coordination of programs and agencies.

• Lack of resources, knowledge, and capacity to promote safe &

effective controlled burns where permitted, e.g. buffer zones.

• Poorly thought out carbon sequestration projects in fire-

dependent ecosystems.

Dominican Republic: Fire-dependent Pinus

occidentalis forests with imbedded fire-sensitive cloud

forests

Haiti

DR

• Not understanding that the pine forests need to burn

under an appropriate fire regime.

• Relatively effective fire suppression capacity leading

to large destructive wildfires.

• Escaped agricultural fires affecting forest edges.

Agricultural burning is prohibited, but pervasive.

• Prescribed fire not permitted in protected natural

areas.

• 5-year Fire Management Strategy promotes Rx fire

in plantations, but not supported by current

government.

• Minimal prescribed fire or fire use capacity.

Status & issues: Dominican Republic

Wildfire, March 2005. Wildland fire use decisions

Cuba: Four species of pine; 3 are endemic; 3

depend on fire. Fire-dependent palm savannas

and herbaceous wetlands

Pinus tropicales, Los Indios Reserve,

Isle of Youth

Wet savanna, Morón

• Not understanding that some ecosystems are fire dependent.

• Relatively effective fire suppression capacity.

• Prescribed fire not an accepted practice & not

permitted in protected natural areas.

• No prescribed fire capacity.

• Fire ecology research at the Universidad de Pinar

del Río.

• Intensive silviculture in pine forests.

• Invasive species problems: Dichrostachys cinerea

Status & Issues: Cuba

Fire Management

Workshop series in

Cuba

Integrated Fire

Management Plan for

Monte Ramonal

Floristic Reserve

Domingo Ballate Denis, Regional Chief, Silviculture,

Empresa Nacional para la Protección de la Flora y

la Fauna

Training and

research burns at

Monte Ramonal

Prescribed burning to maintain

Cuban sandhill crane habitat.

Pinus tropicalis y P. caribea

Pinar del Río

Isla de la Juventud

Reserva Biológica Los Indios

Grulla cubana

Guatemala: Fire-dependent pine forests &

fire-sensitive tropical broadleaved forests

Escaped agricultural fires in the Petén (Selva Maya)

• Lack of understanding of fire-dependent pine forests.

• Colonization of the Petén by people with no

experience with agricultural burning. Excessive

escaped fires. Land tenure issues. Fires affecting

Belize & Mexico.

• Perception that once a tropical forest burns it no

longer has conservation value.

• Lack of community-based fire management programs.

• Prescribed fire in protected areas is prohibited.

• Lack of prescribed fire capacity.

• New draft strategy that will recognize prescribed fire

as a management tool.

Status & Issues: Guatemala

Honduras: 70% of country is fire-dependent pine/oak and

pine savanna ecosystems. Three species of pine.

• Huge proportion of pinelands burn every year. Limits

pine regeneration.

• Role of fire in maintaining pine ecosystem not well

understood.

• Former prescribed fire capacity; prescribed fire

accepted as a silvicultural tool by government and

utilized by private timber companies.

• New forest law allows prescribed fire; draft rules for

prescribed fire use.

• Military involved in fire management.

• Fire use in protected areas not accepted.

• Community-based programs will be key.

Status & Issues: Honduras

Fire management

assessment of

Caribbean pine

savannas in eastern

Honduras

Role of indigenous burning (Miskito

Indians) in maintaining desired

ecosystems.

Costa Rica: La Amistad International Park. Fire-

sensitive Montane Tropical Forest adjacent to fire-

dependent Páramo and montane grasslands.

Páramo

Montane

forest

Transition

Parque Internacional La Amistad, Costa Rica

Relationship between Lower Montane Grasslands &

Montane Wet Forest

Venezuela: Indigenous fires, Canaima National

Park, the Gran Savanna: Conflict of perceptions

Pampas in Bolivia: Parque Nacional Knoel Kempff

Lobo de crin o

aguará guazú

(Chrysocyon

brachyurus)

Loss of the human component

Guanaco chaqueño in Bolivia

1975

2007

Integrating fire management decisions with

ecology and society

Fire management technologiesFire culture & society

Ecology

Muchas Gracias

por su atención…

Caras del Fuego

http://www.wiserearth.org/group/carasdelfuego