Nature-based solutions to wildfires in rural landscapes of Southern Europe: let’s be fire-smart!
Adrián Regos
A B C * , Silvana Pais A D E , João C. Campos F and Judit Lecina-Diaz G
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Campus de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal.
B Forest Science Center of Catalonia, Crta. Antiga St Llorenç de Morunys km 2, 25280 Solsona, Catalonia, Spain.
C Departamento de Zooloxía, Xenética e Antropoloxía Física, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
D Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, 4099-002 Porto, Portugal.
E BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Campus de Vairão, 4485-661 Vairão, Portugal.
F CICGE - Centro de Investigação em Ciências Geo-Espaciais, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Alameda do Monte da Virgem, 4430-146 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
G Technical University of Munich, Germany; TUM School of Life Sciences; Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management Group, Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz 2, 85354, Freising, Germany.
* Correspondence to: adrian.regos@ctfc.cat
International Journal of Wildland Fire 32(6) 942-950 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF22094
Submitted: 17 June 2022 Accepted: 25 March 2023 Published: 21 April 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Extreme wildfires are expected to increase in Southern Europe, due to climate change and rural abandonment. Fire management is focused on suppression, which accelerates the transition to more flammable landscapes. Here, we synthesise the knowledge acquired over the ‘FirESmart’ project (https://firesmartproject.wordpress.com). Our findings show how agroforestry policies could benefit biodiversity while providing further fire suppression opportunities. The EU Green Deal offers an opportunity to incorporate ‘fire-smartness’ into upcoming agroforestry policies. Still, if these policies fail at reversing rural abandonment, the use of fire could enhance rewilding and tree-planting as ‘climate-smart’ strategies in the fire-prone mountains of Southern Europe.
Keywords: Ecosystem services, fire-smart, High Nature Value farmlands, land-use scenarios, nature conservation, rewilding, rural abandonment, stakeholders, wildfires.
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