Members of the FIRE-ADAPT consortium have gathered for the third time in Brazil from 11 to 27 June. The event has been organised by the Brazil Study Hub, formed by the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA) and the Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio), and the Polo Socioambiental Sesc Pantanal. The main objectives have been to advance tasks in the areas of expertise of FIRE-ADAPT and learn about the ecology of Brazilian biomes with different degrees of fire dependence, the country’s integrated fire management strategies, and the management of its protected areas. The gathering was held in three stages.
The first stage took place in Brasilia, at the headquarters of the National Centre for Wildfire Prevention and Fighting (Prevfogo), belonging to IBAMA. Activities included talks on the federal forest management structure and integrated fire management in Brazil, the ecological role of fire in Brazilian biomes, and its effects on flora, fauna and indigenous communities. Participants also visited plots treated by prescribed burns in the Brasília National Park, a protected area just 10 km from the city.
“There are many uncertainties associated with the concept of integrated fire management. We (IBAMA-Prevfogo) are approaching the academic community to be able to count on studies that help us see how to improve it in the country, reducing large wildfires with the least possible impact on biodiversity,” says Mariana Senra de Oliveira, Research and Interagency Technical Assistant at Prevfogo/IBAMA.
Those days, the FIRE-ADAPT areas “Biodiversity Conservation” (work package 2, WP2) and “Carbon Dynamics” (WP1) facilitated collaborative work sessions aimed at developing methods to study the effects of fire on biodiversity and carbon fluxes. The areas “(Inter)cultural services and human well-being” (WP3) and “Modelling and forecasting” (WP4) also had a space to discuss their work in progress.
The meeting continued by visiting the Cerrado, a fire-prone biome containing a wide mosaic of plant compositions, such as the savannah. The participants visited two conservation units managed by ICMBio: the Chapada dos Guimarães National Park and the Serra das Araras Ecological Station (ESEC), where the participants learned about their integrated fire management actions in a theoretical and practical way, carrying out prescribed burns to reduce the risk of large fires, led by local brigades.
“The prescribed burn in Chapada dos Guimarães was very well conceived. It was open-ended, meaning that the fire was supposed to stop on its own when passing from one type of plant composition to another. Planning this requires knowing very well the flammability properties and how they change as the fire propagates. In the end, the burnt area was exactly what was expected.“, describes Davide Ascoli, WP1 co-leader.
This stage had a strong component of knowledge exchange with brigadistas and members of traditional communities about their relationship with fire, history, culture, and traditional knowledge, such as the use of Cerrado plants for therapeutic purposes. Another example is an ignition technique in hard-to-reach places, consisting in bow-shooting a bamboo device that has a piece of burning fabric at one end.
“This event has been very special for ICMBio, since it has allowed us to share with FIRE-ADAPT our innovative approach to managing protected areas and part of our work over the last 10 years in integrated fire management, which has had very good results.”, states Luiz Gustavo Gonçalves, Environmental Analyst at ICMBio.
In this phase, the activities of the areas of expertise of the project continued. Among them, a session on the change in the social perspective of integrated fire management through multimedia resources, led by WP3 and WP6 (Communication and dissemination), and a test of field protocols to collect data on the carbon dynamics in areas treated with prescribed burns (WP1). This test was carried out on the plots of the CerFogo research project at the ESEC Serra das Araras to carry out experimental burns.
The meeting ended in the Pantanal, a fire-sensitive biome whose ecology is marked by water rise and fall cycles, and that is currently being affected by a large fire. In 2020, it suffered the largest fire in Brazil so far, which burned more than four million hectares in almost three months and triggered a paradigm shift towards integrated fire management. The first prescribed burn was conducted in 2022, and its first Plan for integrated fire management was approved earlier this year.
Sesc Pantanal hosted talks on the ecology of this biome, the evolution of its integrated fire management and the management of its conservation units; a field trip within the Sesc Pantanal Private Natural Heritage Reserve (RPPN); an experiential workshop to reflect on possible fire futures for landscapes through visualisation and storytelling, led by WP3; and meetings to wrap up the work carried out in Brazil.
“The last stage of the FIRE-ADAPT gathering in Sesc Pantanal has been an opportunity to integrate us with other institutions that work on the same topic and have other ways of doing so. For us it is very important to understand the opportunities for technical and scientific collaboration so that we can advance the work we are doing here in Brazil, in this humid biome,” points out Alexandre Enout, Manager of the RPPN Sesc Pantanal.
A highlight of this FIRE-ADAPT meeting is the exchange of knowledge and experiences between participants, both from FIRE-ADAPT and external, and all the collaborators involved thanks to IBAMA, ICMBio and Sesc Pantanal, from different perspectives: natural sciences, social sciences, management, fighting, and traditional knowledge.
“The activities have reinforced collaboration between the agencies and institutions participating in the project, and the important role of IBAMA and ICMBio in integrated fire management. They have also served for an important exchange of knowledge between the different project participants,” says Imma Oliveras, scientific coordinator of FIRE-ADAPT.
“The other day, all of a sudden, all this rush of ideas just hit me from conversations I’d had, and I wrote for a few hours brainstorming all out. I would say it’s been very inspiring, a source of many new ideas, and it helps you see the world and the landscapes in a different way.”, explains Grania Power, postgraduate researcher at the University of East Anglia.
In the coming months, the France Study Hub will begin organising the fourth meeting of the consortium, which will take place at the end of January 2025.