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 will work 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) will give a lecture on policy analysis, which will then be applied to analyze the two strategies. Results are 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 cover future challenges and associated uncertainty of future integrated wildfire management: how to prepare for (un)known. They are 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 will attend, their affiliation, and the topic they will present on.