Introduction
Fire management is a complicated and contested activity. There simply is no ideal fire regime that suits all management goals. For this reason, fire management strategies have to be flexible, inclusive and adaptive. The consequences of past management decisions need to be constantly reviewed. This information should then be used to inform ongoing and future management decisions.
Each fire management decision has costs and benefits. Who burns, why do they burn (or decide not to burn), and when do they do so? What are the points of conflict between people? We will focus on three groups of land managers – Indigenous people, pastoral land managers and conservation and biodiversity managers. Bearing in mind that these three groups may have overlapping membership or objectives, their approaches to ‘management’ and differing values and constructions of landscape may be summarised as follows:
- For many Indigenous people, 'management' is about nourishing a mutual relationship with a sentient landscape and its resources
- For mangers of pastoral lands, management is focussed on an economic cost-benefit analysis of the landscape and its resources
- For conservation and biodiversity managers, management is based on the recognition of perceived intrinsic values of the landscape and its resources
These are over simplified summaries of complex positions, but serve to highlight the fact that different groups may have different motivations and goals for fire management and consequently create different burning regimes.
What are the options for engaging these groups in decision-making for fire management? There is a growing literature on community engagement, capacity building and cross-cultural engagement for natural resource management.
There is also a growing number of community based projects exploring models for improved fire management. You will be introduced to examples from northern Australia and eastern Indonesia that involve collaborations between community members, agencies and researchers.
In the following materials you will be asked to address the following three issues:
- Who burns, and why, when and how do they burn?
- What are the available models for community engagement for improved fire management?
- What existing examples are there of collaborative fire management projects and how successful are they?
There are no simple answers to the question of fire management. You will be directed to resources, and you will have to evaluate the situation for yourself in whatever fire management setting you find yourself in the future.
