Manejo do fogo em áreas naturais: conhecimento tradicional, conflitos e serviços ecossistêmicos associados

Abstract

Fire management is an important tool for the conservation of natural areas in order to obtain ecosystem services such as the regulation of the flora and fauna of fire-dependent ecosystems, the protection against wildfires, the maintenance of traditional practices and the provision of products from nature. The Traditional Fire Knowledge (TFK) may be an ally in fire management, further favoring the maintenance of those services. However, controversies and misunderstandings regarding the use of fire in conservation still remain. In the context of protected areas (PAs), the use of fire by local populations is one of the main Conservation Conflicts (CCs), which often reflects the incompatibility between the requirements of environmental policies and the local management actions. Despite advances towards the paradigm shift, from the ‘Zero Fire’ policy to the ‘Integrated Fire Management’ (IFM), there are still considerable challenges in reconciling the sociocultural realities with the ecological viability of ecosystems, as well as in understanding communities and their TFK as a part of management, and, therefore, reducing the conflicts and developing more effective technologies. In this context, the goal of this thesis was to investigate fire management in natural areas and PAs and its relation with the TFK by means of two research projects. The first one consists of a case study involving PAs in the state of Minas Gerais, in which the CCs associated with fire, the use of fire by local populations and the management of the PAs, the importance of the TFK in the application of the IFM and conflicts were investigated. To this end, information from the perception of managers from twenty-nine Pas was used. It was found that the relevance of fire-related CCs is high and that IFM processes are still incipient or non-existent. Two scenarios were found: the current scenario of fire and conflict management indicating that the strategies are mainly focused on the fire exclusion perspective; and the scenario of transition to IFM, which takes into consideration the TFK contributions of local populations in management. The second research aimed at studying the effects of fire management and its ecosystem services and how the presence / absence of the TFK influences such effects / services. A bibliographical inventory of researches from all over the world, published in scientific journals was carried out. Fire management has been found as a useful tool in providing regulatory, provision and cultural ecosystem services from prescribed fires conducted by managers or even processes that involve the TFK. Most quotes were related to the positive effects, pointing out the regulatory services and the category ‘Protection against fires’. The negative effects decreased considerably with the presence of the TFK. Thus, the research has demonstrated the contributions of TFK in fire management, representing an important way to support the intercultural governance as an alternative to reduce conflicts and support the sociobiodiversity conservation, as well as, in the maintenance of ecosystem services associated with fire management, by making it possible a greater integration of knowledge, technologies, ecology and the culture of fire.