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Stephen J. Pyne
Stephen J. Pyne is a professor in the Biology
& Society Program at Arizona State University; Tempe, Arizona, USA. He is
the author of 15 books, 11 of which deal with fire, the most recent being Smokechasing
and Fire: A Brief History. Previously, he had spent 15 seasons on the fire crew
at Grand Canyon National Park.
Presentation Summary:
“ The Global Perspective Conceptualising
Fire in Past, Present & Future Settings”
The Earth is a uniquely fire planet and humanity, a uniquely
fire creature. The past and future of fire will continue to derive
from our coevolution. The primary drivers will be the continued
expansion of industrial combustion, large-scale shifts in land
use,
the rise and fall of fire-management institutions, and changes
in our conceptions of fire. In particular, we need to recreate
a role for ourselves as constructive fire
agents.
William Bond
William Bond is an ecologist based at the University of Cape
Town, in South Africa. His research interests are in those
processes most strongly influencing vegetation change in the
past and present, including fire, vertebrate herbivory, climate
extremes, habitat fragmentation and plant-animal mutualisms.
He has worked in South African fynbos and other shrublands
in California, Australia and Chile and, more recently, in southern
African grasslands and savannas. His research has applications
in biodiversity conservation, rangeland management, and natural
resource utilisation.
Presentation Summary:
Flammable ecosystems with a long evolutionary history of burning
owe their very existence to fire. There is a growing consensus
that species exist in flammable ecosystems because they possess
traits that are compatible with the prevailing fire regime. The
fire regime, in turn, depends partly on the collective properties
of the plant species which create the ‘fuel’. There
are important ramifications of this view. Changes in fire regimes
should trigger extinction cascades of species with incompatible
life histories. Managing fire regimes becomes of central importance
for biodiversity conservation. Management has to be interventionist.
New approaches to fire management are being developed which recognise
its central importance in biodiversity conservation.
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Puan Hajah Rosnani Ibarahim
Rosnani Ibarahim is now the Director-General of the Department
of Environment Malaysia. She is a chemical engineer by academic
qualification from the University of Leeds United Kingdom. Since
joining the Department of Environment in 1977, she has worked
in different sections of the Department thus gaining extensive
experience in various environmental management programs implemented
by the Department.
Rosnani has been heavily involved in the development of Malaysia’s
policy and strategy in pollution control including air, noise,
water and marine pollution control. She was instrumental in the
formulation of a handbook detailing the functions, responsibilities
and coordination required of various relevant government agencies
involved in the enforcement of marine pollution. The handbook
is now adopted as one of the government’s standard operating
procedure.
Presentation Summary:
Haze or smoke pollution resulting from land and forest fires
has been a regular phenomenon in the ASEAN region since late
1980’s. The 1997/98 haze occurrence was one of the most
serious incident ever experienced in the ASEAN region that had
caused negative impacts on the socio-economic, environment and
health of the people in the region. Due to the urgency and complexity
of the haze issue which was transboundary in nature, the Regional
Haze Action Plan (RHAP), which sets out the cooperative measures
needed to address the haze issue, was endorsed by the ASEAN Environment
Ministers on 23 December 1997.
Since then, the paper summarizes some of the important activities
implemented nationally or regionally to manage haze in the region.
It also highlights the principles stated in the ASEAN Agreement
on Transboundary Haze Pollution and the progress of its implementation
in addressing the problem of haze, in particular on the establishment
of an ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution
Control and the interim arrangement.
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Phil Koperburg
CEO of the NSW Rural Fire Service since 1985, Commissioner Koperberg
first became involved with the Service in 1967 as a fire fighter
in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, considered to be one of
the most wildland fire prone areas of the world. He was appointed
full time Fire Control Officer for this area in 1970.
During the summer of 2002-2003 Australia saw one of it’s
longest and most serious bush firefighting campaigns for which,
again, Koperberg was the overall emergency controller for the
State of NSW.
Presentation Summary:
Wildland fire has inexorably shaped the Australian landscape.
At the extreme end of the fire behaviour spectrum, the most robust
preventative and mitigation measures are severely tested. Activities
including hazard reduction, creation of asset protection zones
and rigorous fire hygiene near vulnerable assets can offer excellent
protection during lesser fires. When coupled with partnerships
between fire services and communities they offer increased, but
not guaranteed levels of protection, during “worst case” events.
Australia has yet to reach the point where partnerships between
communities and fire services have reached full potential. Following
each severe fire event that causes loss of property and sometimes,
tragically, loss of life, the debate focuses on issues familiar
to most members of the community and vested interests. This debate
occurs to the detriment of a critical examination of areas where
significant advances in protection of life and property can,
and have been achieved through full involvement of communities.
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Jerry Williams
Williams began his Forest Service career 32 years ago as a firefighter.
He was a smokejumper for 7 years and served in other varied fire
management positions at the Forest Service District, Forest,
Regional, and National Office levels. During the 2000 Fire Season
in the Northern Rockies, Williams chaired the Multi-Agency Coordination
Group that oversaw suppression efforts and the integration of
international assets.
Jerry Williams has worked successfully with forestry and fire
management organizations in the States, other Federal agencies,
the international fire community, and fire management personnel
of independent fire protection associations.
In May 2001 he was selected as the National Fire and Aviation
Management Director, Headquarters, Washington, DC. Williams has
led or co-led development of national strategies dealing with
the integration of fire into natural resource management. Many
of his efforts have been aimed at restoring fire-dependent ecosystems
as the basis for a more effective wildland fire protection program.
These strategies are among the foundation documents for the National
Fire Plan.
Presentation Summary:
In the United States, population growth and development near
wildlands has been significant. People are building homes on
fueled areas where trees and brush screen them from their neighbours
and provide them a much-valued sense of solitude and seclusion.
In some parts of the country, much of this development has been
in the fire- dependent ecosystems where the very attributes that
attract people become the same factors that can put them at risk.
Forests that were once maintained in an open condition by periodic
surface fire are now choked by upwards of 1,000 trees per acre,
where fire has been excluded. This increase in biomass has become
the fuel that now threatens houses at the interface.
At landscape scales, much more is at risk than individual houses.
Community values that include watersheds, view sheds, recreational
opportunities, and forest health are also at risk.
Our ability to influence both the social behaviours in the context
of fire regime dynamics and our ability to convey the social,
economic, and ecological consequences of “no-action” (no
active management) will affect the policy makers’ decision
space for the safety of communities at risk and the sustainability
of wildlands at risk.
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Bob Mutch
Retired from a 38-year career in forest fire research and fire
management with the U.S. Forest Service in 1994. Areas of special
interest include forest fuel management, fire ecology, fire behaviour
prediction, wildland fire training, public and firefighter safety,
wildland fire suppression, prescribed fire in wilderness management,
and international assistance. Since 1994 has served as a fire
management consultant with assignments in Brazil, Ethiopia, India,
and Mongolia for the United Nations and the World Bank.
First fire work with the Forest Service was as a smokejumper
in Missoula, Montana, in the mid-1950’s. Later served for
11 years on a national Type I fire suppression team as a Fire
Behaviour Analyst.
B.A. degree in biology and English from Albion College in Michigan,
1956.
M.S.F. degree in fire science from University of Montana, 1959.
Presentation Summary:
Numerous countries and organizations have provided assistance
in the past to strengthen the fire management capacity of targeted
countries. These programs often have been successful in the short
term by providing training, equipment, communications, policies,
and practices to improve responses to wildland fires. However,
when projects finally terminate and an influx of money and technical
support is no longer available, the in-country infrastructure
for fire management can quickly deteriorate.
The future challenge will be to find mechanisms for sustaining
networks and cooperative projects over the long term. It will
be necessary to provide technical guidance to establish the elements
of systematic fire management while at the same time ensuring
the continuity and stability of the process. A current effort
under the United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction is establishing Regional Wildland Fire Networks to
provide on-going assistance.
A recent assessment of the global forest fire situation revealed
strengths and weaknesses associated with sustaining the health
and productivity of the world’s forests when threatened
by drought, wildfires and an increasing demand for natural resources.
One strength characterizing the 1990s was the unprecedented level
of inter-sectoral and international cooperation in helping to
lessen the impact of wildfires on people, property and natural
resources.
Global trends in fire management will be highlighted; and case
examples will be presented that illustrate fire management constraints
and opportunities.
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Johann Goldammer
Professor Dr. Johann G. Goldammer is Director of the Global
Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) and head of the Fire Ecology and
Biomass Burning Research Group of the Max Planck Institute for
Chemistry, located at Freiburg University, Germany. Since 1993
he is serving as leader of the United Nations ECE/FAO Team of
Specialists on Forest Fire. He is editor of UN International
Forest Fire News (IFFN) since 1988. As a representative of the
civil society he is member of the Inter-Agency Task Force for
Disaster Reduction (IATF), UN International Strategy for Disaster
Reduction (ISDR), and serves as coordinator the Working Group
on Wildland Fire (IATF Working Group 4). He is also member of
the Executive Board of the German Committee for Disaster Reduction
within the ISDR. For the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (UN-OCHA) the GFMC is serving as information provider
and backstopping unit for supporting international assistance
to forest fire emergencies.
Presentation Summary:
The closing paper of the 3rd International Wildland Fire Conference
will summarize the views and recommendations of the conference
inputs papers and the discussions held in the conference sessions.
This summary paper will be based on reports by session rapporteurs
and will build the bridge to the Global Wildland Fire Summit
which will be held on 8 October 2003 under the theme “Fire
Management and Sustainable Development: Strengthening International
Cooperation to Reduce the Negative Impacts of Fire on Humanity
and the Global Environment”.
The summit will recommend a series of strategies for a concerted
international forest fire management program. It is expected
that the recommendations presented by the speakers and discussants
at the 3rd International Wildland Fire Conference will provide
the most recent priority inputs to the Summit and the follow-up
process.
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