Fire Management: Wildland Fire & Protected Areas
in the Context of Changing Environments:
Latin America & the Caribbean
Ronald L. MyersTallahassee, FL, USA
Caribbean pine savanna
Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve
Honduras
Primary barriers to effective fire management in
Latin American & Caribbean protected areas:
1. Lack of understanding of the ecological
role of fire in ecosystems.
2. Failure to link the underlying causes of fire
problems with appropriate solutions.
3. Counter-productive public policies and
legislation.
4. Capacity & resource issues.
• Failure to understand fire regimes and what is
ecologically appropriate for a given ecosystem.
• Failure to understand & distinguish fire-
dependent vs fire-sensitive (= fire-influenced)
ecosystems & their relationships.
• Failure to distinguish between detrimental &
beneficial fires.
• Failure to recognize the role of human burning
in maintaining desired ecosystem states.
1. Lack of understanding of the ecological
role of fire in ecosystems:
2. Failure to link the underlying causes of fire
problems with appropriate solutions:
• Most fires are ignited by people for the purpose of
maintaining their livelihoods.
• Failure to understand the socio-economic context
in which many of those fires occur.
• Focus on emergency response rather than
underlying causes of unwanted fires.
• Prevention programs that label all fires as bad.
• Lack of integrated approaches to the problem.
3. Counter-productive public policies & legislation:
• Focus on fire suppression & prevention of all fires even in fire-
dependent ecosystems.
• Criminalize fire use.
• Prohibit fire use & prescribed burning in forested ecosystems
and particularly in protected natural areas.
• Misconceptions about, or narrow perceptions of, Fire
Management.
• Lack of integration & coordination of programs and agencies.
• Lack of resources, knowledge, and capacity to promote safe &
effective controlled burns where permitted, e.g. buffer zones.
• Poorly thought out carbon sequestration projects in fire-
dependent ecosystems.
Dominican Republic: Fire-dependent Pinus
occidentalis forests with imbedded fire-sensitive cloud
forests
Haiti
DR
• Not understanding that the pine forests need to burn
under an appropriate fire regime.
• Relatively effective fire suppression capacity leading
to large destructive wildfires.
• Escaped agricultural fires affecting forest edges.
Agricultural burning is prohibited, but pervasive.
• Prescribed fire not permitted in protected natural
areas.
• 5-year Fire Management Strategy promotes Rx fire
in plantations, but not supported by current
government.
• Minimal prescribed fire or fire use capacity.
Status & issues: Dominican Republic
Wildfire, March 2005. Wildland fire use decisions
Cuba: Four species of pine; 3 are endemic; 3
depend on fire. Fire-dependent palm savannas
and herbaceous wetlands
Pinus tropicales, Los Indios Reserve,
Isle of Youth
Wet savanna, Morón
• Not understanding that some ecosystems are fire dependent.
• Relatively effective fire suppression capacity.
• Prescribed fire not an accepted practice & not
permitted in protected natural areas.
• No prescribed fire capacity.
• Fire ecology research at the Universidad de Pinar
del Río.
• Intensive silviculture in pine forests.
• Invasive species problems: Dichrostachys cinerea
Status & Issues: Cuba
Fire Management
Workshop series in
Cuba
Integrated Fire
Management Plan for
Monte Ramonal
Floristic Reserve
Domingo Ballate Denis, Regional Chief, Silviculture,
Empresa Nacional para la Protección de la Flora y
la Fauna
Training and
research burns at
Monte Ramonal
Prescribed burning to maintain
Cuban sandhill crane habitat.
Pinus tropicalis y P. caribea
Pinar del Río
Isla de la Juventud
Reserva Biológica Los Indios
Grulla cubana
Guatemala: Fire-dependent pine forests &
fire-sensitive tropical broadleaved forests
Escaped agricultural fires in the Petén (Selva Maya)
• Lack of understanding of fire-dependent pine forests.
• Colonization of the Petén by people with no
experience with agricultural burning. Excessive
escaped fires. Land tenure issues. Fires affecting
Belize & Mexico.
• Perception that once a tropical forest burns it no
longer has conservation value.
• Lack of community-based fire management programs.
• Prescribed fire in protected areas is prohibited.
• Lack of prescribed fire capacity.
• New draft strategy that will recognize prescribed fire
as a management tool.
Status & Issues: Guatemala
Honduras: 70% of country is fire-dependent pine/oak and
pine savanna ecosystems. Three species of pine.
• Huge proportion of pinelands burn every year. Limits
pine regeneration.
• Role of fire in maintaining pine ecosystem not well
understood.
• Former prescribed fire capacity; prescribed fire
accepted as a silvicultural tool by government and
utilized by private timber companies.
• New forest law allows prescribed fire; draft rules for
prescribed fire use.
• Military involved in fire management.
• Fire use in protected areas not accepted.
• Community-based programs will be key.
Status & Issues: Honduras
Fire management
assessment of
Caribbean pine
savannas in eastern
Honduras
Role of indigenous burning (Miskito
Indians) in maintaining desired
ecosystems.
Costa Rica: La Amistad International Park. Fire-
sensitive Montane Tropical Forest adjacent to fire-
dependent Páramo and montane grasslands.
Páramo
Montane
forest
Transition
Parque Internacional La Amistad, Costa Rica
Relationship between Lower Montane Grasslands &
Montane Wet Forest
Venezuela: Indigenous fires, Canaima National
Park, the Gran Savanna: Conflict of perceptions
Pampas in Bolivia: Parque Nacional Knoel Kempff
Lobo de crin o
aguará guazú
(Chrysocyon
brachyurus)
Loss of the human component
Guanaco chaqueño in Bolivia
1975
2007
Integrating fire management decisions with
ecology and society
Fire management technologiesFire culture & society
Ecology
Muchas Gracias
por su atención…
Caras del Fuego
http://www.wiserearth.org/group/carasdelfuego