Rural communities, traditional communities, and indigenous peoples now have access to guidelines that facilitate implementation. integrated fire management in the territories
The Society, Population and Nature Institute (ISPN) launched, this Thursday (September 14th), the Practical Guide for Developing an Integrated Fire Management Plan in rural and traditional communities, during the 10th Meeting of the Peoples of the Cerrado, in Brasília. The publication is a partnership with the National Center for Prevention of Forest Fires (Prevfogo) of Ibama, Boitatá Consultoria and the Postgraduate Program in Ecology of the University of Brasília (UnB), with support from the Climate and Land Use Alliance (Clua).
The guide combines scientific and technical knowledge with the traditional practices of communities that use fire to manage their territories. It is an innovative publication intended especially for managers of conservation units, land reform settlers, rural and traditional communities, and indigenous peoples.
The purpose of this publication is to provide systematized and simplified information for the development of Integrated Fire Management Plans (IFMPs) and to ensure greater safety and effectiveness of the activities and actions foreseen in the IFM.
The PMIF (Integrated Fire Management Plan) is considered one of the most important tools for Integrated Fire Management (IFM) in Brazil today. This guide helps make it more accessible to those who apply the knowledge and information in practice.
MIF is a comprehensive approach to land management aimed at environmental and cultural conservation and reducing areas burned by wildfires (uncontrolled and unwanted fires). It includes several combined actions: firefighting; the application of controlled and prescribed burns; the recovery of degraded areas; the establishment of burning schedules; environmental education; the creation of firebreaks; the training and capacity building of community fire brigades, among others.
Mariana Senra de Oliveira, a technical research assistant at Prevfogo/Ibama, states that the guide reflects how Prevfogo has been operating in federal areas over the past eight years. "Our expectation is to build a unified alignment on the Integrated Fire Management (IFM), so that we have landscape-level fire management, with each actor playing their role, but aligned with each other," she said.
Bill
Bill 1.818/2022, which establishes the National Integrated Fire Management Policy, is in the Federal Senate for consideration by senators and should be voted on this semester.
With the approval of the bill, PMIFs (Integrated Forest Management Plans) will be important documents for traditional communities and indigenous peoples to document their fire use practices and plan management actions in their territories. The law also stipulates that rural producers will need to present PMIFs in order to carry out prescribed burns.
“The Practical Guide prepares the ground for PMIF (Integrated Forest Management Plan) productions to be possible and accessible, eliminating the need to hire third-party services. These service providers often charge high prices for developing a management plan, and they don't express the necessary actions for the territory with sufficient detail or richness,” explains Lívia Carvalho Moura, technical advisor for the Cerrado and Caatinga Program at ISPN.
Professor Isabel Schmidt, from the Ecology Department at UnB (University of Brasília), explains that the guide reflects the experiences and lessons learned during eight years of practice in Conservation Units (UCs), Indigenous Lands (TIs), and Quilombola Territories, but that these territories represent a small part of the Cerrado. "Therefore, the guide allows us to expand the Integrated Forest Management Plan (MIF) and comply with the Native Vegetation Protection Law, known as the Forest Code, which permits the use of fire in landscape management, provided there is a detailed plan," explains Isabel Schmidt.
ISPN Communications Office / Letícia Verdi