Threats and Strategies for Global Biodiversity Conservation

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In order to craft effective strategies,conservation organizations andpartners need to understand ecosystemand human relationships to fire.Altered fire regimes can change the species composition,structure and fire characteristics in any ecosystem.To effectively conserve biodiversity, we need tounderstand not only how fire naturally behaves inecosystems, but also how people use or alter nativefire regimes for ecological and social benefit. Certainhuman land uses can alter the healthy functioningof fire in any ecosystem type—whether it befire-dependent, fire-sensitive or fire-independent.For example, rural development in fire-dependentecosystems often brings with it suppression of all fireincidents—natural and human-caused—to protecthuman communities. Rural development in fire-sensitiveecosystems may have a different impact. Housing andinfrastructure development is often followed byhuman-caused fires that require fire prevention orsuppression for the sake of biodiversity conservation.In order to craft effective strategies, conservationorganizations and partners need to understandecosystem and human relationships to fire.An Australian aborigine uses fire as a land management tool in Arnhem Land,Northern Territory, Australia. People around the world have legitimate reasonsfor starting fires, and many cultures have gained an intimate knowledge of firebehavior, having used fire as a tool for centuries. © Penny Tweedie/CORBISBox 3. Fire’s Ecological RoleEcosystems can be classified in terms of their relationshipto fire regime characteristics such as fuels, flammability,ignitions, and fire spread conditions.Fire-dependent ecosystems are those where most of thespecies have evolved in the presence of fire, and wherefire is an essential process for conserving biodiversity(e.g., savannas, temperate coniferous forests). Excludingfire from these systems, or introducing ecologicallyinappropriatefire—at inappropriate frequency, severityor seasonal timing—can substantially alter these systems.Fire-sensitive ecosystems are those where most of thespecies have not largely evolved in the presence of fire.While fire may play a secondary role in maintainingnatural ecosystem structure and function in fire-sensitivesystems, the introduction of ecologically-inappropriatefire can have an extensive negative impact on biodiversity(e.g., tropical moist broadleaf forests). Too much fire infire-sensitive forests can also create a negative feedbackloop, making these forests more susceptible to fire inthe future, and rapidly degrading the most intact forestecosystems.Fire-independent ecosystems are those that naturallylack sufficient fuel or ignition sources to support fireas an evolutionary force (e.g., deserts, tundra).Fire-dependent, -sensitive and -independent ecosystemscan be further classified in terms of their condition. Forexample, through human land uses, even fire-independentsystems can experience more fire than would haveoccurred naturally through the introduction of invasiveexotic species, or excessive human-caused ignitions.Intact fire regimes are those that have fire regimecharacteristics (e.g., fire frequency, severity, extent,and season) within their range of natural variability.Degraded fire regime conditions are those that areconsidered by experts to be outside their range ofnatural variation, but are considered restorable.Very degraded fire regime conditions are those faroutside their natural range of variability, and maynot be restorable.4
Assessment Methods:Scientific Collaboration Leads to Understanding Fire Ecology, Threats and StrategiesThe Global Fire Partnership (GFP) recognizes the need toassess the state of the world’s fire regimes, craft effectiveconservation strategies, and build a global constituency ofpartners to address fire as a conservation issue. In March2004, the GFP gathered a group of fire experts and policymakersfrom around the world in Switzerland to discussglobal fire regimes and biodiversity conservation. Theresults of that workshop (TNC 2004) represented thefirst coarse-scale assessment of where and to what extentfire is beneficial or harmful to conserving biodiversity andled to the more recent assessment described here.To better understand the global role of fire in biodiversityconservation, and to identify the actions necessary to abatethreats to maintaining and restoring fire’s ecological role,the GFP implemented three expert workshops betweenJanuary and July 2006, covering four broad biogeographicrealms: Australasia, Indo-Malay, Nearctic and Neotropic 2 .Realm-level workshops were designed to establish aconsistent global dataset of the ecological roles of fire andthreats to maintaining those roles at a coarse resolution,which could then be applied to biodiversity conservationglobally. Workshops also aimed to illuminate linkagesbetween fire, climate change, and other human-causedthreats to biodiversity, while also strengthening collaborationand partnerships among experts, managers and policy-makers.Figure 1: Map of realms/ecoregions assessed in 2004 and 2006.Attendees of the Nearctic realm expert workshop review data.© Faith KearnsWorkshops began with preliminary global fire assessmentdata developed by the GFP in 2004 (TNC 2004).These data represented fire regime types, conditions andthreats across WWF Global 200 ecoregions—a subsetof all terrestrial ecoregions worldwide. Between August2005 and January 2006, literature review and expertsurveys were conducted to fill the majority of gaps in thepreliminary assessment (Figure 1). WWF ecoregions wereused as a foundation for the assessment because they areavailable consistently around the world, and represent amanageable level of resolution for a rapid, expert-drivenglobal assessment. During realm-level workshops in 2006,Assessed in 2004Assessed in 2006Future Assessment Area5
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Page 4 and 5: Mopping-up after a prescribed burn
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Page 26 and 27: ReferencesOlson, D.M., E. Dinerstei
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Threats and Strategies for Global Biodiversity Conservation

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