Can Forest Restoration Reduce the Threat of Megafires?

World Environment Day, which falls on 5 June, marks the official launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global push to revive natural spaces lost to development. In the lead-up to the Decade’s launch, UNEP is looking back on some of our most popular restoration-related stories, including this piece originally published in December 2020. 

Restoration after a wildfire

Forest restoration can also help after a fire. In many situations, forest ecosystems will quickly rebound on their own, depending on the intensity and impacts of the fire. In others, interventions can aid and steer that process.

When fires strip landscapes of vegetation, hillsides are vulnerable to massive erosion that can hinder a forest’s recovery. Reseeding can reduce the risk of soil loss and landslides and protect water supplies. Using native grasses can block invasive competitors.

Where fire has damaged the habitat of rare wildlife, replanting specific trees and plants may help target populations to survive. In eastern Australia, for instance, ecologists are re-establishing mistletoe in forests used by an endangered bird, the regent honeyeater.

Restoration can begin even while a fire is still burning, in the form of first aid and rehabilitation for injured wildlife. Food drops for species whose natural larders have been destroyed can help them survive, as can programmes to control invasive predators.

Reviving landscapes

Active replanting is a focus in forest landscape restoration in some fire-prone areas. In Portugal’s Algarve region, for instance, a project aims to recreate belts of native, fire-resistant cork oak forest among more flammable commercial plantations of eucalyptus and pine.

Portugal is also an example of how reducing the risk from fire can mean restoring the economic and social fabric of whole regions. The country’s new national fire management plan bundles natural and social restoration as one of its five pillars. Measures to prevent catastrophic fires include valuing rural landscapes more highly.

“More people need to have a stake in restoring and managing these landscapes, and more support from governments and business is needed in order to make it happen,” said Peter Moore, a forest fire expert with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

“Strong rural communities can understand the value as well as the risks of fire.”

The United Nations General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Decade is designed to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. This global call to action will be launched on 5 June, World Environment Day.

The UN Decade will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration with the goal of reviving millions of hectares of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Visit www.decadeonrestoration.org to learn more.

*SOURCE: UNEP. Go to ORIGINAL.
2021 Human Wrongs Watch