3-7 October, 2024
FIREPOL researchers will be attending and participating in the Forests & Livelihoods Assessment, Research, and Engagement (FLARE) conference from October 3-7, 2024 in Rome, Italy. The FLARE Network seeks to advance knowledge at the forest and livelihood nexus to facilitate policy and practical applications. As part of FIREPOL, Luisa Escobar, M.Sc. will be presenting “Finding the dry dense forests of Africa: the central role of local knowledge in the process of classifying forest types in Southeast Angola“, while Alessandro Tinti will be presenting “The Politics of Wildfires: A Review and Research Agenda“. Please read each researcher’s abstracts for further information!
Finding the dry dense forests of Africa: the central role of local knowledge in the process of classifying forest types in Southeast Angola
Abstract: It has been claimed that the highlands of the Moxico province in southeast Angola contain the largest contiguous and relatively intact miombo woodland in Africa (NGOWP, 2017). Previous spatial analysis show vast extensions of somewhat homogeneous miombo, interspersed with savannas along watercourse margins. After conducting several interviews, focus groups, transect walks and participatory mapping methods with locals, our study lead us to consider that the characteristics of some of the vegetation formations in the area, such as response to fire, tree species composition and ground cover do not match with the description of miombo reported in scientific literature. Specifically, locals reported a vegetation formation (“dense woodlands”) dominated by Cryptosepalum spp., that is of high economic and cultural importance to them. The results of this work show that those dense woodlands might rather be representative of dense dry forests, currently reported endemic to West Lunga in Zambia, an area also known as the Zambezian dry evergreen forest dominated by Cryptosepalum exfoliatum pseudotaxus (WLCP, 2023). Meanwhile, east Angola remains classified as tropical savanna or miombo woodlands (White, 1983; WWF, 2006). With these insights, articulated with data obtained from ecological surveys of those forests, maps of these unique African evergreen dry forests can be updated to incorporate a more accurate description of vegetation types, including socio-cultural values and perceptions, uses and management.
This work highlights the value of giving voice to local communities in the process to understand a complex landscape (touched by war, colonization, migration, etc.) that has been classified and managed by them since ancient times; and it emphasizes the importance of integrating different types of knowledge in the process of building scientific knowledge. The outcomes of this study can be used by habitat managers in the region and by the broader scientific community to study, manage and conserve African dry forests through approaches that are inclusive and fair. In addition, we hope this work contributes in the safeguarding of local ecological knowledge, helps reinforce cultural indigenous identities and connections to their living place, and gives visibility to experiential spatialities.
Authors and affiliations
Luisa Fernanda Escobar Alvarado (Presenting) s2111552@ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Kyle Graham Dexter, PhD kyle.dexter@ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
The Politics of Wildfires: A Review and Research Agenda
As a relatively new area of research, studies on wildfire politics have been sparse and fragmented, primarily focusing on the Global North and technical matters such as fire management practices, community preparedness, and post-fire recovery. The linkages between wildfires and rural livelihoods and development pathways in the Global South remain largely underexplored. This paper aims to bridge this gap by reviewing existing literature, focusing on research in political ecology, environmental economics, and human geography regarding the socio-ecological dimensions of wildfires in the Global South. Based on the original analytical framework established by the ERC-funded FIREPOL project, we identify key political drivers across three scales: i) Supra-politics or how policies and institutions shape wildfires, including key policy areas such as land use and agriculture, environmental regulations, economic and development models, and urban and demographic planning; ii) Para-politics or how actor-driven power dynamics, including patronage and clientelist networks, the alignment between political and technocratic visions of fires, and the role of social and environmental activism, interfere in the political process and are reflected in wildfire geographies; iii) Infra-politics or how cultural and identity systems and contentious politics shape wildfire at the local level, for example using wildfires as protest tools against national policy implementation.. This effort is crucial in identifying key knowledge gaps and research pathways, including: the growing risk of transnational political crises driven by the intensification of wildfires and their externalities (e.g., haze clouds and pollution); the role of war and conflict in shaping regional wildfire patterns (and viceversa); the interactions between public health emergencies and extreme wildfires; the potential trade-offs between carbon offset policies for climate mitigation (e.g., tree planting) and fire risk. Methodological challenges, such as the lack of cross-national data on fire policies, and innovative research tools, such as remotely sensed data, are also discussed. In conclusion, the paper elaborates on how expanding knowledge on wildfire politics not only contributes to remedy the patchy understanding of the relationship between fire and anthropogenic actions, but also challenges the narrow public narrative of wildfires as ‘natural disasters’ to be mitigated or suppressed, grounded in (neo-)colonial views and practices.
Authors and affiliations
Alessandro Tinti, PhD (Presenting)
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Lorenza Fontana, PhD
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Fires and the War: A Comparative Study of Pre- and Post-war Fire Regimes in East Angola
This work is a pioneering interdisciplinary and multi-methods investigation of the links between forest fires and violent conflict. Geographies of war often overlap and have important impact in reshaping natural landscapes, in some cases reaching remote and pristine areas. Yet environmental research related to warfare is limited and often not interdisciplinary, with a handful of studies focusing on the relationship between fire, war and forest. Integrating historical information gathered through interviews with elder members of local communities and satellite data analysis, we compare pre- and post-war fire regimes in Moxico, east Angola. This remote region is identified as the largest undisturbed miombo woodlands in Africa and is also one of the areas most heavily and persistently affected by 27 years of civil war (1975-2002). In these highlands, the patchy configuration of the vegetation comprising flammable savannas intertwined with non-flammable forests seem to be closely linked to fire regimes largely influenced by humans that adapt and change according to social circumstances, and that might have important effects on the heterogeneity of the vegetation. Our qualitative and quantitative data point towards a decrease in fire frequency and intensity during the civil war (with a resulting perceived increase in woodland cover), followed by a steady increase after the peace agreement was signed in 2002. We identified possible reasons for this change linked to three main factors: 1. A shift from strict to weak fire governance alongside the loss of customary knowledge of fire use; 2. Drastic changes in subsistence activities linked to local livelihoods; 3. Limited and geographically concentrated impact and use of fire in warfare. Although the ecology of the landscape is important in determining fire regimes, human dynamics and decisions over the land could have major impact on vegetation, ecosystem services and forest communities. This study highlights the importance of socio-political factors in shaping fire regimes alongside ecological ones. These aspects, we argue, deserve closer attention and are better served by transdisciplinary, multi-method approaches.
Authors and Affiliations
Luisa Fernanda Escobar Alvarado
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Lorenza Fontana, PhD
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
