Refocusing on Community-Based Fire Management (A Review)

Abstract

Forest fires do not only destroy the forests, it endangers public health, disrupt socio-economic activities, and contribute to greenhouse gas emission but do more harm than good to the ecosystem. A greater percent of forest fires occurring in the world, especially developing countries have been identified to have human causes. Land use was identified as number one cause while others like conflicts and human errors follow as reasons for which people burn the forest. Governments and cooperate bodies have invested much in solutions that largely control these fires rather than preventing them. This approach has yielded results that do not match the investments. It is in view of this worrying situation that this review was carried out to reassess the prospects of Community Based Fire Management (CBFiM) system as a critical component for achieving an effective integrated forest fire management. The work is structured into four sections, section one introduces forest fires and discusses general causes, and prevailing management tactics, section two discusses CBFiM and its potentials, section three follows up with case-studies from USA, Vietnam, and Ghana, the fourth section concludes with ways of enhancing the CBFiM system to make it more effective.