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Abstract
Fire-risk and management involves complex, interdependent, and dynamic systems. It also presents a highly politicised problem that becomes increasingly complex over time, with a multiplicity of ‘actors’, fields, regions, goals, and values. The present study addresses fire-risk and management in the context of climate change by analysing and identifying problems in fire policy and processes. We review the social, historical and political influences embedded in decision-making that affect the perception, construction, problematisation, and responses to fire-risk.
Two areas have been chosen for comparative analysis: the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage region in New South Wales, Australia and the Provence region of southeast France. The pace and magnitude of climate change present unprecedented and unequivocal conditions that are likely to exceed adaptation thresholds and may well disturb ecosystems and communities irreversibly. Increasingly destructive bushfires generate multiple management issues and they can become an ‘exponential problem’ in sensitive areas where populations are expanding, notably at Wildland–Urban Interfaces. At present there is no agreement about optimum fire-management solutions.
The study involves examining how two regions cope with: 1. Managing changing and unpredictable risks in fire-prone communities at Wildland–Urban Interfaces; 2. Managing fire risk in vulnerable ecosystems in such a way as to protect biodiversity and ecosystem functions, the chief question being how vulnerability and uncertainty can be factored overall and what values should be assigned to them; 3. Managing human communities in fire-prone landscapes in such a way that adequate protection and safety are provided. Management implies not only focusing on the risks themselves but also on perceptions of such risks. Community knowledge and participation are determinant in fire-policy processes, in part because the necessary role of communities in managing fire risk is dependent on their awareness of the risks and their capacity to learn from them. The problems of fire-risk management also underscore the idea that both communities and governments have to be seriously engaged with this issue in order to achieve sustainability, security and adaptability.