A Burning Question: Can Long-term Data Inform Fire Management in the Twenty-first Century? - Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Change - page 72

1000

900

800

700

600

500

Prescribed Burning

400

Flexible Prescribed Burning

300

Lightning

200

100

0
200.0

y = 1.3026 x - 400.09
R 2 = 0.716

400.0 600.0

Rainfall (mm)

800.0 1000.0 1200.0

Figure 4.8 Area burned in the Kruger National Park, during different approaches to fire management,
following a period of fire suppression that homogenized the fuel base. Prescribed burning (1957-1980),
flexible burning (1981-1991), and lightning-induced burning (1992-2001) did not affect the relationship
between mean annual rainfall over the preceding 2 years and the extent of fires (Van Wilgen et al 2004).

buffering fire regimes from variations in climate to some extent and potentially enhancing
the capacity of humans to influence the resilience of ecosystem services (Le Page et al. 2010,
Archibald et al. 2012, Laris 2013).
Over recent decades, there has been recognition of the important ecological role of fire and
other forms of disturbance in shaping ecosystems and driving nutrient and energy flows
(White 1979, Pickett et al. 1989, Turner et al. 2003, Roxburgh et al. 2004, North and Keeton 2008,
Long 2009, Penman et al. 2011). It is now understood that a policy of fire suppression can
threaten the integrity of fire-adapted ecosystems, reducing resilience, and affecting human
livelihoods (Laris 2002, Keane et al. 2009, Long 2009). Ecosystem management includes the
maintenance and restoration of processes, variability and resilience, and requires the continu-
ation or restoration of disturbance regimes (see Chapter 1)—which may include natural fire
regimes and areas that have been traditionally and sustainably managed. New, adaptive
approaches to fire management are emerging, based on an ecosystem approach, but making
decisions about fire management is complex, uncertain, and fraught with controversy. Some
principles that may help in navigating fire management decisions are as follows.

Consider historical range of variability

As ecological theory and conservation practice have advanced, the command and control
approach to conservation management, including policies of fire suppression, is increasingly
recognised as unfeasible and counterproductive (Holling and Meffe 1996). Rather than
attempting to prevent disturbance, there is a move towards reinstating historic fire regimes