Titre
Democratizing wildfire strategies. Do you realize what it means? Insights from a participatory process in the Montseny region (Catalonia, Spain)
Type
étude de cas
Institution
Externe
Périodique
Auteur(s)
Otero, Iago
Auteure/Auteur
Castellnou, Marc
Auteure/Auteur
González, Itziar
Auteure/Auteur
Arilla, Etel
Auteure/Auteur
Castell, Llorenç
Auteure/Auteur
Castellví, Jordi
Auteure/Auteur
Sánchez, Francesc
Auteure/Auteur
Nielsen, Jonas Ø.
Auteure/Auteur
Éditeur(s)
Noormets, Asko
Liens vers les personnes
ISSN
1932-6203
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
2018-10-16
Volume
13
Numéro
10
Première page
e0204806
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Langue
anglais
Résumé
Participatory planning networks made of government agencies, stakeholders, citizens and scientists are receiving attention as a potential pathway to build resilient landscapes in the face of increased wildfire impacts due to suppression policies and land-use and climate changes. A key challenge for these networks lies in incorporating local knowledge and social values about landscape into operational wildfire management strategies. As large wildfires overcome the suppression capacity of the fire departments, such strategies entail difficult decisions about intervention priorities among different regions, values and socioeconomic interests. Therefore there is increasing interest in developing tools that facilitate decision-making during emergencies. In this paper we present a method to democratize wildfire strategies by incorporating social values about landscape in both suppression and prevention planning. We do so by reporting and critically reflecting on the experience from a pilot participatory process conducted in a region of Catalonia (Spain). There, we built a network of researchers, practitioners and citizens across spatial and governance scales. We combined knowledge on expected wildfires, landscape co-valuation by relevant actors, and citizen participation sessions to design a wildfire strategy that minimized the loss of social values. Drawing on insights from political ecology and transformation science, we discuss what the attempt to democratize wildfire strategies entails in terms of power relationships and potential for social-ecological transformation. Based on our experience, we suggest a trade-off between current wildfire risk levels and democratic management in the fire-prone regions of many western countries. In turn, the political negotiation about the landscape effects of wildfire expert knowledge is shown as a potential transformation pathway towards lower risk landscapes that can re-define agency over landscape and foster community re-learning on fire. We conclude that democratizing wildfire strategies ultimately entails co-shaping the landscapes and societies of the future.
PID Serval
serval:BIB_D47EFCCE048F
PMID
Open Access
Oui
Date de création
2020-07-14T10:26:11.255Z
Date de création dans IRIS
2025-05-20T22:45:39Z