Why it is important to investigate the consequences of landscape fires in African biodiversity hotspots?

Wildfires have major impacts on climate, biodiversity and ecosystem services relevant for local communities.  International cooperation, multidisciplinary, and multistakeholder approaches are necessary to investigate fires’ benefits and damages, as well as to develop management policies essential for the achievement of several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The continent of Africa accounts for more than 70% of the area burned annually in the world, generating a CO₂ amount equivalent to 14% of global emissions from fossil fuels. A large proportion of these burned areas are in the open vegetation biomes (grasslands and savannahs) of biodiversity hotspots, shaping their ecosystem composition. In these regions fire has a large social component, sometimes conflictive, as rural populations use it as a tool to manage natural resources, while government policies tend to suppress or control the use of fire.

Our goals

Based on these premises, we aim to investigate how different fire regimes affect carbon dynamics, plant diversity and nature’s benefits to people in the fire-prone open biomes of the Madagascar and Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity hotspots, in order to identify the best-balanced fire management policies.

Our methods

This objective will be addressed through a multidisciplinary approach, by using demographic, social, economic, remotely sensed plant- and soil-based information obtained from databases, satellite imagery, field sampling, interviews in cultural landscapes,  controlled fire experiments, in cooperation with international actors and practitioners.

Our expected outputs

Outputs will serve to achieve comprehensive knowledge of the dimensions of fire impacts, to refine global carbon emission models by providing insights of overlooked fire-related carbon sinks, and to identify suitable policies to meet global agendas and local demands.