PyroLife Workshop 4

Changing Policy 

June 15th – 17th 2022

Introduction

Unprecedented wildfire seasons over the past decades have disrupted the coupled human and natural system and are in part attributed to ill-suited policies. Mostly targeting fire exclusion and emergency suppression, policies are often reactive in responding to extreme wildfire events, misguided by conservationist or esthetic values visions of forests, and maintained to uphold an economic interest in firefighting or around timber resources. On the contrary, the role of fire for culture and ecology is hardly addressed with a balanced and integrated management approach.

In this workshop, participants worked with the national wildland fire strategies of Portugal and Canada, both of which are amongst the most progressive wildfire policies globally. Prof. Lukas Giessen (TU Dresden) gave a lecture on policy analysis, which was then applied to analyse the two strategies. Results were presented in an interactive discussion with Dr Tiago Oliveira (AGIF Portugal) and Mike Norton (Canadian Forest Service), with a particular focus on the policy making process.

PyroLife Workshops covered future challenges and associated uncertainty of future integrated wildfire management: how to prepare for (un)known. They were interactive events using a flipped classroom concept, meaning that participants study theory (knowledge and comprehension) in advance so class time can focus on higher level skills (application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation) in discussions and exercises.

Course Information

Stakeholder Speakers

The following table summarises all the speakers who attended, their affiliation, and the topic they presented.