Abstract
Fire is a natural process that has played a major role in shaping our environment and maintaining biodiversity worldwide. However, over 60% of the world’s terrestrial habitats have altered fire regimes. At least 20% of global habitats are classified as fire-sensitive, including most tropical habitats; they are composed of species that did not largely evolve in the presence of fire. Over 70% of these fire-sensitive habitats have altered fire regimes. While fire has been, and still is, an important tool used by humans to cultivate agricultural landscapes, when human actions cause too much, too little, or the wrong type of fire, it can threaten our environment by releasing unacceptable levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, providing pathways for harmful invasive species, altering landscape hydrology, impairing local and regional air quality, and presenting a direct and often increased risk to human habitation. Recognizing the value and need to assess the world’s fire regimes, The Nature Conservancy, University of California at Berkeley, World Conservation Union (IUCN), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) completed an expert-based analysis of the state of the world’s fire regimes based on currently available data and expert opinion. The major sources of fire regime alteration worldwide include climate change, agriculture and ranching, deforestation, rural and urban development, energy production, fire exclusion and suppression, invasive species, plantations, and arson. Integrated fire management (IFM) is an approach that considers both damaging and beneficial fires within the context of the natural environments and socio-economic systems in which they occur. IFM takes into account fire ecology, socio-economic issues, and fire management technology to generate practical solutions to fire-related threats to biodiversity.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achard, F., H.D. Eva, P. Mayaux, H. Stibig, and A. Belward (2004) Improved estimates of net carbon emissions from land cover change in the tropics for the 1990s. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 18, 1–11.
Alencar, A., L. Solorzano, and D. Nepstad (2004) Modeling forest understory fires in an eastern Amazonian landscape. Ecological Application, 14, S139–S149.
Alencar, A., D. Nepstad, and M. Diaz (2006) Forest understory fire in the Brazilian Amazon in ENSO and non-ENSO years: Area burned and committed carbon emissions. Earth Interactions, 10, Paper No. 6, 17 pp.
Andreae, M., D. Rosenfeld, P. Artaxo, A. Costa, G. Frank, K. Longo, and M. Silva-Dias (2004) Smoking rain clouds over the Amazon. Science, 303, 1337–1342.
Balch, J.K., D.C. Nepstad, and L.M. Curran (this book) Pattern and process: Fire-initiated grass invasion at Amazon transitional forest edges. In M.A. Cochrane (Ed.), Tropical Fire Ecology: Climate Change, Land Use, and Ecosystem Dynamics. Springer/Praxis, Heidelberg, Germany/Chichester, U.K.
Barber, C.V. and J. Schweithelm (2000) Trial by Fire: Forest Fires and Forestry Policy in Indonesia’s Era of Crisis and Reform. World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.
Barbosa, R.I. and P.M. Fearnside (1999) Incêndios na Amazônia Brasileira: Estimativa da emissão de gases do efeito estufa pela queima de diferentes ecossistemas de Roraima na passagem do evento “El Nino” (1997/1998). Acta Amazônica, 29, 513–534 [in Portuguese].
Bradstock, R.A., J.E. Williams, and A.M. Gill (2002) Flammable Australia: The Fire Regimes and Biodiversity of a Continent. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Bond, W.J. and B.W. van Wilgen (1996) Fire and Plants. Chapman & Hall, London.
Chazdon, R.L. (2003) Tropical forest recovery: Legacies of human impact and natural disturbances. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 6, 51–71.
Cochrane, M.A. (2003) Fire science for rainforests. Nature, 421, 913–919.
Cochrane, M.A., A. Alencar, M.D. Schulze, C. Souza, Jr., D. Nepstad, P. Lefebvre, and E. Davidson (1999) Positive feedbacks in the fire dynamic of closed canopy tropical forests. Science, 284, 1832–1835.
Cochrane, M.A. and W.F. Laurance (2002) Fire as a large-scale edge effect in Amazonia forests. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 18, 311–325.
Curran, L.M., S. Trigg, A. McDonald, D. Astiani, Y.M. Hardiono, P. Siregar, I. Caniago, and E. Kasischke (2004) Lowland forest loss in protected areas of Indonesian Borneo. Science, 303, 1000–1003. Supplementary online material at http://www.sciencemag.org/egi/content/full/303/5660/1000/DC1
DeFries, R.S., R.A. Houghton, M.C. Hansen, C.B. Field, D. Skole, and J. Townshend (2002) Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and regrowth based on satellite observations for the 1980s and 1990s. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 99, 14256–14261.
Dennis, R.A., J. Mayer, G. Applegate, U. Chokkalingam, C.J.P. Colfer, I. Kurniawan, H. Lachowski, P. Maus, R.P. Permana, Y. Ruchiat et al. (2005) Fire, people and pixels: Linking social science and remote sensing to understand underlying causes and impacts of fires in Indonesia. Human Ecology, 33, 465–504.
FAO (2005) Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 121 pp.
Foley, J.A., M.H. Costa, C. Delire, N. Ramankutty, and P. Snyder (2003) Green surprise? How terrestrial ecosystems could affect earth’s climate. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 1, 38–44.
Gill, A.M., J.R.L. Hoare, and N.P. Cheney (1990) Fires and their effects in the wet-dry tropics of Australia. In J.G. Goldammer (Ed.), Fire in Tropical Biota: Ecosystem Processes and Global Challenges. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Goldammer, J.G. (1990) Fire in Tropical Biota: Ecosystem Processes and Global Challenges. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Goldammer, J.G. and C. Price (1998) Potential impacts of climate change on fire regimes in the tropics based on MAGICC and a GISS GCM-derived lightning model. Climatic Change, 39, 273–296.
Hoffmann, W.A., B. Orthen, P.P. Kielse, and V. Do Nascimento (2003) Comparative fire ecology of tropical savanna and forest trees. Functional Ecology, 17, 720–726.
Houghton, R.A. (2003) Revised estimates of the annual net flux of carbon to the atmosphere from changes in land use and land management 1850–2000. Tellus, 55B, 378–390.
IPCC (2001) Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
IUCN-CMP (2006) Unified Classification of Direct Threats, Version 1.0. Available at http:// www.iucn.org/ themes/ssc/sis/classification.htm
Keeley, J.E. and W.J. Bond (1999) Mast flowering and semelparity in bamboos: The bamboo fire cycle hypothesis. American Naturalist, 154, 383–391.
Langner, A.; J. Miettinen, and F. Siegert (2007) Land cover changes 2002–2005 in Borneo and the role of fire derived from MODIS imagery. Global Change Biology, 13, 2329–2340.
Laurance, W.F. (2004) Forest-climate interactions in fragmented tropical landscapes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London Series B, 359, 345–352.
Laurance, W.F., M.A. Cochrane, S. Bergen, P.M. Fearnside, P. Delamonica, C. Barber, S. D’Angelo, and T. Fernandes (2001) The future of the Brazilian Amazon. Science, 291, 438–439.
Malhi, Y. and J. Wright (2004) Spatial patterns and recent trends in the climate of tropical rainforest regions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London Series B, 359, 311–329.
Manta, M. (2007) Evaluación de las causas naturales y socioeconómicas de los incendios forestales en América del Sur. In J.G. Goldammer (Ed.), Cuarta Conferencia Mundial de Incendios Forestales, Sevilla, España, mayo 11–14 [in Spanish]
Manta, M. and H. León (2004) Los incendios forestales del Perú: Grave problema por resolver. Floresta (Brasil), 34, 179–189 [in Spanish].
Miranda, H.S., C.H. Saito, and B.F.d.S. Dias (1996) Impactos de Queimadas em Areas de Cerrado e Restinga. Universidade de Brasília, Brasilia [in Portuguese].
Morton, D.C, R.S. DeFries, Y.E. Shimabukuro, L.O. Anderson, E. Arai, F. del Bon Espirito-Santo, R. Freitas, and J. Morisette (2006) Cropland expansion changes deforestation dynamics in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 39, 14637–14641.
Myers, R. (2006) Living with Fire: Sustaining Ecosystems and Livelihoods through Integrated Fire Management. The Nature Conservancy Global Fire Initiative, Tallahassee, FL, 32 pp. Available at http://tncfire.org/documents/Integrated_Fire_Management_Myers_2006.pdf
NC (2004) Fire, Ecosystems and People: A Preliminary Assessment of Fire as Global Conservation Issue. The Nature Conservancy, Tallahassee, FL. Available in English and Spanish at http://nature.org/initiatives/fire/science/
NC (2006) Interim Report on Global Habitat Assessments. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA.
Nepstad, D., G. Carvalho, A.C. Barros, A. Alencar, J.P. Capobianco, J. Bishop, P. Moutinho, P. Lefebvre, U.L. Silva, Jr., and E. Prins (2001) Road paving, fire regime feedbacks, and the future of Amazon forests. Forest Ecology and Management, 154, 395–407.
Nepstad, D., P. Lefebvre, U. Lopes da Silva, J. Tomasella, P. Schlesinger, L. Solórzano, P. Moutinho, D. Ray, and J. Guerreira Benito (2004) Amazon drought and its implications for forest flammability and tree growth: A basin-wide analysis. Global Change Biology, 10, 704–717.
Nepstad, D., C. Stickler, and O. Almeida (2006) Globalization of the Amazon beef and soy industries: Opportunities for conservation. Conservation Biology, 20, 1595–1603.
Nepstad, D.C., A. Verissimo, A. Alencar, C. Nobre, E. Lima, P. Lefebvre, P. Schlesinger, C. Potter, P. Moutinho, E. Mendonza et al. (1999a) Large scale impoverishment of Amazonian forests by logging and fire. Nature, 398, 505–508.
Nepstad, D.C, A.G. Moreira, and A. Alencar (1999b) Flames in the Rainforest: Origins, Impacts and Alternatives to Amazonian Fires, The Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rainforest. World Bank, Brasilia, Brazil.
Olson, D.M., E. Dinerstein, E.D. Wikramanayake, N.D. Burgess, G.V.N. Powell, E.C. Underwood, J.A. D’Amico, I, Itoua, H.E. Strand, J.C. Morrison et al. (2001) Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: A new map of life on Earth. Bioscience, 51, 933–938.
Ometto, J.P.H.B., A.D. Nobre, H.R. Rocha, P. Artaxo, and L.A. Martinelli (2005) Amazonia and the modern carbon cycle: Lessons learned. Oecologia, 143, 483–500.
Page, S.E., F. Siegert, J.O. Rieley, H.V. Boehm, A. Jaya, and S. Limin (2002) The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia during 1997. Nature, 420, 61–65.
Shlisky, A., J. Waugh, P. Gonzalez, M. Gonzalez, M. Manta, H. Santoso, E. Alvarado, A. Ainuddin Nuruddin, D.A. Rodríguez-Trejo, R. Swaty et al. (2007) Fire, Ecosystems and People: Threats and Strategies for Global Biodiversity Conservation, Global Fire Initiative Technical Report 2007-2. The Nature Conservancy. Arlington, VA.
Siegert, F., G. Ruecker, A. Hinrichs, and A.A. Hoffmann (2001) Increased damage from fires in logged forests during droughts caused by El Niño. Nature, 414, 437–440.
Sorrensen, C. (2004) Contributions of fire use study to land use/cover change framework: Understanding landscape change in agricultural frontiers. Human Ecology, 32, 395 420.
Thonicke, K., S. Venevsky, S. Sitch, and W. Cramer (2001) The role of fire disturbance for global vegetation dynamics: Coupling fire into a dynamic global vegetation model. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 10, 661–677.
Tian, H., J. Melillo, D.W. Kicklighter, D.A. McGuire, J.V.K. Helfrich, B. Moore, III, and C.J. Vörösmarty (1998) Effect of interannual climate variability on carbon storage in Amazonian ecosystems. Nature, 396, 664–667.
Timmermann, A., J. Oberhuber, A. Bacher, M. Esch, M. Latif, and E. Roeckner (1999) Increased El Niño frequency in a climate model forced by future greenhouse warming. Nature, 395, 694–697.
Trenberth, K.E. and T.J. Hoar (1997) El Nino and climate change. Geophysical Research Letters, 24, 3057–3060.
Uhl, C. and R. Buschbacher (1985) A disturbing synergism between cattle ranching burning practices and selective tree harvesting in the eastern Amazon. Biotropica, 17, 265–268.
UN (2005) Millennium Development Goals Report 2005, United Nations Department of Public Information. United Nations, New York.
Van der Werf, G.R., J.T. Randerson, J. Collatz, L. Giglio, P.S. Kasibhatla, A.F. Arellano, Jr., S.C. Olsen, and E.S. Kasischke (2004) Continental-scale partitioning of fire emissions during the 1997 to 2001 El Niño/La Niña period. Science, 303, 73–76.
Van Wilgen, B.W., C.S. Everson, and W.S.W. Trollope (1990) Fire management in southern Africa: Some examples of current objectives, practices, and problems. In J.G. Goldammer (Ed.), Fire in Tropical Biota: Ecosystem Processes and Global Challenges. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Vayda, A.P. (2006) Causal explanation of Indonesian forest fires: Concepts, applications and research priorities. Human Ecology, 34, 615–635.
Walker, R., E. Moran, and L. Anselin (2000) Deforestation and cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon: External capital and household processes. World Development, 28, 683–699.
White, A., M. Cannell, and A. Friend (1999) Climate change impacts on ecosystems in the terrestrial carbon sink: A new assessment. Global Environmental Change, 9, S21–S30.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Praxis Publishing Ltd, Chichester, UK
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shlisky, A., Alencar, A.A.C., Nolasco, M.M., Curran, L.M. (2009). Overview: Global fire regime conditions, threats, and opportunities for fire management in the tropics. In: Tropical Fire Ecology. Springer Praxis Books. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77381-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77381-8_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-77380-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-77381-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)