Understanding community perceptions of wildfire occurrence in the Colombian Amazon to develop locally informed participative solutions

Keywords: Social-ecological systems, participatory mapping, wildfire, Colombia, Amazon, deforestation, rural, campesino, protected areas
Session Type: Virtual Guided Poster Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 33

Abstract

The Colombian Amazon has experienced higher occurrences of wildfires in protected areas (PAs) in the years following the Government’s peace accords with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). This study addresses the knowledge gap around how local stakeholders perceive wildfire and its causes and effects in the region.

Four key stakeholders groups representing cattle ranchers, park rangers, local authorities and cross-sectional stakeholders each made participative maps detailing the interactions between economic, political, social and environmental factors related to regional wildfire occurrence. Each focus group drew key factors on a sheet of paper and connected them with arrows to show how they interacted. Key informants in executive positions such as a former president, national parks director and an environmental scientist also participated in interviews to explain their understanding of factors affecting regional wildfire.

Local stakeholders and key informants agreed on extensive and unsustainable cattle ranching, land grabbing, untitled land, and the lack of governance and basic public services as the most important direct drivers of wildfire occurrence. However, the participative maps revealed how local stakeholders see wider factors such as weak institutions and poor marketing and distribution of agricultural products as contributing to these direct drivers. This suggests that efforts to mitigate wildfire occurrence in Colombia’s Amazonian PAs could take advantage of stakeholder demand for sustainable agricultural alternatives. Subsequent analyses (in progress) indicate the potential for increased adoption of emerging agroforestry approaches, such as rubber and indigenous fruit cultivation, to recover landscape connectivity and secure local livelihoods without clearance burns.