Globally, wildfires are increasing in extent, frequency, and severity. Although global climate change is a major driver and large-scale governance interventions are essential, focusing on governance at smaller scales is of great importance for fostering resilience to wildfires. Inherent tensions in managing wildfire risk are evident at such scales, as objectives and mandates may conflict, and trade-offs and impacts vary across ecosystems and communities. Our study feeds into debates about how to manage wildfire risk to life and property in a way that does not undermine biodiversity and amenity values in social-ecological systems. Here, we describe a case study where features of adaptive governance emerged organically from a dedicated planning process for wildfire governance in Australia. We found that a governance process that is context specific, allows for dialogue about risk, benefits, and trade-offs, and allows for responsibility and risk to be distributed amongst many different actors, can provide the conditions needed to break down rigidity traps that constrain adaptation. The process enabled actors to question whether the default risk management option (in this case, prescribed burning) is aligned with place-based risks and values so they could make an informed choice, built from their participation in the governance process. Ultimately, the community supported a move away from prescribed burning in favor of other wildfire risk management strategies. We found that the emergent governance system has many features of adaptive governance, even though higher level governance has remained resistant to change. Our study offers positive insights for other governments around the world interested in pursuing alternative strategies to confronting wildfire risk.

The post To burn or not to burn: governance of wildfires in Australia first appeared on Ecology & Society.

在全球范围内，野火的范围、频率和严重程度都在增加。尽管全球气候变化是一个主要驱动因素，大规模的治理干预措施至关重要，但注重小规模的治理对于增强抵御野火的能力非常重要。在如此规模的野火风险管理中，固有的紧张关系显而易见，因为目标和任务可能会发生冲突，而且不同生态系统和社区的权衡和影响各不相同。我们的研究引发了关于如何以不破坏社会生态系统中的生物多样性和舒适价值的方式管理野火对生命和财产的风险的争论。在这里，我们描述了一个案例研究，其中适应性治理的特征是从澳大利亚野火治理的专门规划过程中有机出现的。我们发现，一个针对具体情况的治理流程，允许就风险、收益和权衡进行对话，并允许在许多不同的参与者之间分配责任和风险，可以提供打破限制的僵化陷阱所需的条件。适应。该过程使参与者能够质疑默认风险管理选项（在本例中为规定销毁）是否与基于地点的风险和价值观保持一致，以便他们可以在参与治理过程的基础上做出明智的选择。最终，社区支持放弃规定的焚烧，转而采用其他野火风险管理策略。我们发现，新兴治理体系具有许多适应性治理的特征，尽管高层治理仍然抵制变革。我们的研究为世界各地有兴趣采取替代策略应对野火风险的其他政府提供了积极的见解。

《烧还是不烧：澳大利亚野火治理》一文首次出现在《生态与社会》上。