This is a presentation given in a wildland fire session at the 9th World Wilderness Congress held in Merida, Mexico, 9 November 2009. It gives an overview of fire management in several Latin America countries.

1. Fire Management: Wildland Fire & Protected Areas
in the Context of Changing Environments:
Latin America & the Caribbean
Caribbean pine savanna Ronald L. Myers
Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve Tallahassee, FL, USA
Honduras

2. Primary barriers to effective fire management in
Latin American & Caribbean protected areas:
1. Lack of understanding of the ecological
role of fire in ecosystems.
2. Failure to link the underlying causes of fire
problems with appropriate solutions.
3. Counter-productive public policies and
legislation.
4. Capacity & resource issues.

3. 1. Lack of understanding of the ecological
role of fire in ecosystems:
• Failure to understand fire regimes and what is
ecologically appropriate for a given ecosystem.
• Failure to understand & distinguish fire-
dependent vs fire-sensitive (= fire-influenced)
ecosystems & their relationships.
• Failure to distinguish between detrimental &
beneficial fires.
• Failure to recognize the role of human burning
in maintaining desired ecosystem states.

4. 2. Failure to link the underlying causes of fire
problems with appropriate solutions:
• Most fires are ignited by people for the purpose of
maintaining their livelihoods.
• Failure to understand the socio-economic context
in which many of those fires occur.
• Focus on emergency response rather than
underlying causes of unwanted fires.
• Prevention programs that label all fires as bad.
• Lack of integrated approaches to the problem.

5. 3. Counter-productive public policies & legislation:
• Focus on fire suppression & prevention of all fires even in fire-
dependent ecosystems.
• Criminalize fire use.
• Prohibit fire use & prescribed burning in forested ecosystems
and particularly in protected natural areas.
• Misconceptions about, or narrow perceptions of, Fire
Management.
• Lack of integration & coordination of programs and agencies.
• Lack of resources, knowledge, and capacity to promote safe &
effective controlled burns where permitted, e.g. buffer zones.
• Poorly thought out carbon sequestration projects in fire-
dependent ecosystems.

6. Dominican Republic: Fire-dependent Pinus
occidentalis forests with imbedded fire-sensitive cloud
forests

7. Haiti
DR

8. Status & issues: Dominican Republic
• Not understanding that the pine forests need to burn
under an appropriate fire regime.
• Relatively effective fire suppression capacity leading
to large destructive wildfires.
• Escaped agricultural fires affecting forest edges.
Agricultural burning is prohibited, but pervasive.
• Prescribed fire not permitted in protected natural
areas.
• 5-year Fire Management Strategy promotes Rx fire
in plantations, but not supported by current
government.
• Minimal prescribed fire or fire use capacity.

11. Wildfire, March 2005. Wildland fire use decisions

12. Cuba: Four species of pine; 3 are endemic; 3
depend on fire. Fire-dependent palm savannas
and herbaceous wetlands
Wet savanna, Morón
Pinus tropicales, Los Indios Reserve,
Isle of Youth

13. Status & Issues: Cuba
• Not understanding that some ecosystems are fire
dependent.
• Relatively effective fire suppression capacity.
• Prescribed fire not an accepted practice & not
permitted in protected natural areas.
• No prescribed fire capacity.
• Fire ecology research at the Universidad de Pinar
del Río.
• Intensive silviculture in pine forests.
• Invasive species problems: Dichrostachys cinerea

14. Fire Management
Workshop series in
Cuba

15. Integrated Fire
Management Plan for
Monte Ramonal
Floristic Reserve
Domingo Ballate Denis, Regional Chief, Silviculture,
Empresa Nacional para la Protección de la Flora y
la Fauna

16. Training and
research burns at
Monte Ramonal

17. Isla de la Juventud
Prescribed burning to maintain Reserva Biológica Los Indios
Cuban sandhill crane habitat.
Pinus tropicalis y P. caribea Grulla cubana
Pinar del Río

18. Guatemala: Fire-dependent pine forests &
fire-sensitive tropical broadleaved forests
Escaped agricultural fires in the Petén (Selva Maya)

19. Status & Issues: Guatemala
• Lack of understanding of fire-dependent pine forests.
• Colonization of the Petén by people with no
experience with agricultural burning. Excessive
escaped fires. Land tenure issues. Fires affecting
Belize & Mexico.
• Perception that once a tropical forest burns it no
longer has conservation value.
• Lack of community-based fire management programs.
• Prescribed fire in protected areas is prohibited.
• Lack of prescribed fire capacity.
• New draft strategy that will recognize prescribed fire
as a management tool.

21. Honduras: 70% of country is fire-dependent pine/oak and
pine savanna ecosystems. Three species of pine.

22. Status & Issues: Honduras
• Huge proportion of pinelands burn every year. Limits
pine regeneration.
• Role of fire in maintaining pine ecosystem not well
understood.
• Former prescribed fire capacity; prescribed fire
accepted as a silvicultural tool by government and
utilized by private timber companies.
• New forest law allows prescribed fire; draft rules for
prescribed fire use.
• Military involved in fire management.
• Fire use in protected areas not accepted.
• Community-based programs will be key.

23. Fire management
assessment of
Caribbean pine
savannas in eastern
Honduras

24. Role of indigenous burning (Miskito
Indians) in maintaining desired
ecosystems.

26. Costa Rica: La Amistad International Park. Fire-
sensitive Montane Tropical Forest adjacent to fire-
dependent Páramo and montane grasslands.

27. Páramo
Transition
Montane
forest
Parque Internacional La Amistad, Costa Rica

28. Relationship between Lower Montane Grasslands &
Montane Wet Forest

30. Venezuela: Indigenous fires, Canaima National
Park, the Gran Savanna: Conflict of perceptions

31. Pampas in Bolivia: Parque Nacional Knoel Kempff
Loss of the human component
Lobo de crin o
aguará guazú
(Chrysocyon
brachyurus)

32. Guanaco chaqueño in Bolivia

34. 1975

35. 2007

36. Integrating fire management decisions with
ecology and society
Fire management technologies Fire culture & society
Ecology

37. Muchas Gracias
por su atención…
Caras del Fuego
http://www.wiserearth.org/group/carasdelfuego