Human dimensions of wildfires: Linking research and environmental education to reduce
Amazonian wildfires
Project Team
Primary Contacts
Jos Barlow (Principal Investigator) Email: josbarlow[at]gmail.com
Luke Parry (Post-doctoral researcher) Email: lukeparry1[at]gmail.com
Additional members
Rachel Carmenta (PhD
researcher,
Lancaster Environment Centre)
Alan Blackburn (remote
sensing/virtual landscapes, Lancaster Environment Centre)
Amanda Estafânia (MSc student,
Goeldi Museum/Federal University of Pará, Belém)
Joice
Ferreira (colllaborator leading EMBRAPA environmental services Agroambiente
project)
Toby Gardner (collaborator leading
TNC/University of Cambridge trade-offs project)
Karoline Gonçalves (Brazilian
Science Council Research Fellow)
Saskia Vermeylen (anthropologist,
Lancaster Environment Centre)
Ima Vieira (lead collaborator and
former director Goeldi Museum, Belém)
Project Summary
This three-year project aims to
reduce the prevalence of Amazonian wildfires by linking earth observation,
biodiversity data, and social and ethnographic research with environmental
education, training, and capacity building.
Rationale:
Humid tropical forests, such as the Amazon, do not normally burn. However,
wildfires have increased dramatically in extent and frequency in the Amazon
basin over the last decade, due to the spread of anthropogenic activities that
frequently involve fire, and recent severe droughts linked to climate change
that increase forest flammability. Brazil’s leading scientists recently
described these accidental wildfires as one of the most important threats
currently facing the Amazon. At the local scale, forest fires have a profound
and long-lasting effect on forest biodiversity, and reduce many non-timber
forest resources important for maintaining sustainable livelihoods. They are also of enormous global
significance, contributing to emissions of greenhouse gases, and undermining
the viability of payments for REDD. Finally, fire can shift the Amazon to an
alternative state of arrested regeneration. The resilience of Amazonian forests
to abnormal droughts breaks down when fire is added to the system. Single low-intensity
fires greatly increase the chance that a forest will burn again, and these
recurrent wildfires have reduced pristine forest to areas of scrub vegetation
with virtually no conservation or economic value. Due to their pervasive and
destructive nature, reducing the spread of wildfire may be the single most
important step for safeguarding the future of the Amazon forest, maintaining
forest resilience to climate change, and helping host nations meet their CBD
commitments. Fire prevention will also help ameliorate climate change by
reducing carbon emissions. A number of factors contribute to the spread of
wildfire in tropical forests. Some are ultimately global in nature (including
climate change and recent agricultural expansion) and are extremely difficult
for individual governments and regional stakeholders to tackle. However,
effective and immediate impacts on the spread of forest fires are possible by
tackling the sources of ignition that stem from the activities of local
farmers. Relatively small changes to agricultural practice include altering the
timing of burns in the dry-season, increasing investment in fire-breaks, and
switching from fire-dependent to fire-sensitive agriculture (e.g. from
slash-and-burn to agroforestry). This project will use an interdisciplinary
ecosystem approach to reduce the prevalence of Amazonian wildfires. It will
achieve this by linking data from different disciplines and spatial scales
(including earth observation, biodiversity data, and social, participatory, and
ethnographic research) in order to develop effective environmental education,
training, and capacity building. We will focus on the state of Pará, where fire
is a major problem and where we have developed strong institutional ties during
previous projects. The four major components are outlined below:
Social and environmental research: We will assess the social and environmental costs of
wildfires, focusing on subsistence farmers and cattle ranchers. Previous burn
history will be determined using earth observation techniques that measure the
frequency, extent, and timing of fires. Biodiversity data will be collected in
four regions, focussing on the birds, dung-beetles and trees. This component is
coordinated by Jos Barlow, and the indicator taxa and methods are selected
based on results from a previous DI project. Data on human behaviour and
attitudes to fire will be gathered using two main social science research
methods. We will use semi-structured interviews to gain a broad understanding
of attitudes to fire, and agricultural practices across a broad spectrum of
households and communities. Ethnographic research methods will be used to
collect more detailed data at the community and individual level, examining
fires as part of a wider livelihood strategy, how the use of fires has changed
from generation to generation, and the symbolic and cultural value of fire.
Ethnographic research methods will include participant observation, visual
anthropology, collecting of life stories and semi-structured interviews and photo
and oral diaries. Finally, these three principal outputs will be combined to
develop a GIS database used to build virtual landscape scenarios, allowing us
to extrapolate data from relatively small spatial scales (e.g. biodiversity and
ethnographic data) to the state of Pará, and develop future scenarios for
regions where wildfires have yet to emerge as a significant issue.
Environmental education and public awareness: The project will produce three major outputs aimed at
increasing environmental awareness in regions where fire is likely to become a
major threat in the future.
1) An ethnographic film will show the social and environmental costs of fires
in regions where they have already burned, and the positive action that can be
taken to prevent this from happening;
2) a
three-dimensional virtual landscape
will provide a multi-scale representation of properties and regions, and use
scenarios to demonstrate the social and environmental costs of failing to
manage fires carefully;
3) a policy document presenting options and
recommendations. These tools will be disseminated
to rural property owners and subsistence communities in the state of Pará using
a variety of techniques to maximise outreach, including visits by state
government officials to rural areas, radio, film, internet, and targeted
visits to key regions by host-country participants.
Formal Collaborating institutions
   | Lancaster Environment Centre,
Lancaster University, UK |
 | Museu
Emílio Paraense Goeldi (MPEG), Belém, Brazil |
 | Federal
University of Pará (UFPA), Belém |
 | Fundação
de Amparo e Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa (FADESP), Belém |
 | Jari
Celulose SA, Monte Dourado, Pará, Brazil |
Informal collaborations
 | Embrapa Amazônia Oriental
(Brazilian Agricultural Research Institute), Belém |
 | Amazon
Institute for People and the Environment (IMAZON), Belé |
Project Sponsors
 | Darwin Inititative, Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK government
|
 | Institutos Nacionais de ciencia e technologia (INCT), Conselho
Nacional de Pesquisa (CNPq), Brazilian government |