Unjp/sfs/002/uid revitalization of forest training centres in the sadc region for green employment – Phase I



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Causes of fires


Lightning can be a significant ignition source, for example in western Namibia, where 60 percent of all fires stem from thunder storms. However, most fires are started by people.
Fire is widely used in African agriculture to promote regeneration of pasture, to clear agricultural sites or remove agricultural residues. However, planned fires are often left unattended and can spread; thus negligence is the most common cause of uncontrolled fires throughout Africa. The list of agents is long – honey hunters, poachers, children at play, abandoned campfires, cooking and warming fires or escaped prescribed fire.
Arson may be caused by cultural or religious beliefs, misunderstanding of an ‘African burning tradition’, civil unrest and personal anger or fear (burning the bush to open it up). Arson fires are also commonly lit by marginal community members for the thrill or to feel empowered.
One of the underlying causes of frequent arson is the problem of ‘ownership’ or tenure. Very often the land belongs to the state or to an anonymous company, and most profits never reach the local population. Thus no sense of responsibility is created for the sustainable use of natural resources and the environment.
In forest plantations, large-scale prescribed burning is a standard practice to prepare sites for planting after harvesting. Firebreaks around and within the compartments are also prepared through burning. More than 10 percent of all plantation fires originate from these activities, due to lack of training of personnel (Goldammer and de Ronde, 2004).

    1. Impacts of wildfire emissions on the atmosphere


The FAO study prepared for the 24th FAO Regional Conference for Africa (FAO, 2006) provides a statement which suitably summarizes the main impacts of vegetation fires in Africa on the atmosphere and notably on the global carbon cycle:
“Fires in Africa are considered to be a major source of emissions of greenhouse gases and their precursors to the global atmosphere. The emissions produced by different fires depend both on the types of fuels present and on the ratio of the flaming to smouldering phases of combustion.
The compounds emitted by fires can be transported long distances during which time some of them are transformed by various chemical and physical processes catalyzed by ultraviolet radiation. Carbon monoxide, methane and nitric oxide are important precursors in the atmospheric photochemical oxidant cycle, which governs the concentration of the hydroxyl radical (OH), the main oxidant responsible for removing many of the pollutants released into the atmosphere, as well as tropospheric ozone, produced by the photolysis of NO2, itself a product of the reaction between nitric oxide and peroxide radicals. Tropospheric ozone is toxic in high concentrations.
Fires in Africa are thought to be the main cause of the plume of tropospheric ozone that extends across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to South America annually during September-October.
As a result of extensive research carried out in Africa over the past 15 years, good information is available on the emission of aerosols and trace gases from most kinds of fires, though more information is needed on emissions from agricultural fires and charcoal use. Research, most notably in southern Africa during the SAFARI-92 and SAFARI 2000 research campaigns, and in Central and West Africa as part of DECAFE and EXPRESSO, has produced good estimates of emission factors for many of the important greenhouse gases, chemical precursors and fine particulate matter (<2.5 µm diameter) from different types of fires and fuels. While there is considerable uncertainty at the level of fine detail, the broad picture is clear: biomass burning in Africa is a major source of emissions to the global atmosphere.
The current estimates of the quantity of biomass burned globally each year from all sources is about 9,200 million metric tonnes (million mt). Overall, global wildfires consume 5,130 million mt, 42 percent of which is burned in Africa (including fires associated with deforestation). This burning releases about 3,431 million mt of CO2, as well as significant quantities of other emissions.”

    1. Fire Management


As a preventive measure, fuel reduction is carried out primarily through prescribed burning between and around commercial forest plantations and nature conservation areas. Countries such as Botswana, Namibia and South Africa prepare quite extensive networks of firebreaks annually. But a problem in most countries is the lack of even basic burning equipment, basic knowledge of fire behaviour and skills in the safe use of fire as a management tool. Knowledge of fire behaviour is a key factor in a successful prevention programme. The more efforts that are put into education and training of local farmers, the less uncontrolled fires will occur. Apart from South Africa, most countries do not have sufficient capacities, resources or skills in wildfire detection and suppression.
Most fire suppression resources are urban or municipal, are located in capitals or bigger cities and do not respond to wildfires occurring in rural areas; sometimes they even lack the mandate to deal with fires in rural areas. There is little capacity within the private sector for fire suppression, with the exception of South Africa and a few other countries. If a fire-management budget is available, in most cases 95 percent of these funds are invested in improving fire suppression and monitoring capabilities, instead of in prevention and capacity-building.
Traditionally, in the SADC region, the responsibility for fire management lies with the Ministries of Environment/Agriculture and Rural Development. However, an increasing number of countries are following the South African example and giving national disaster management centres a share in this mandate. In the United Republic of Tanzania, joint involvement of forestry staff and staff of the Fire and Rescue Service Force has been suggested. However, an important issue remains to be resolved, i.e. the leadership and authority of the fire chief conducting fire suppression activities. The role and authority of the chief have to be clearly defined, especially in commercial farming areas, in relation to regional authorities such as governors.

    1. Community involvement and the key challenges


Some forestry and wildlife management agencies within the region have the basic infrastructure to detect, prevent and suppress fires, but this capability is rapidly breaking down and becoming obsolete. Traditional controls on burning in customary lands are now largely ineffective. Fire control is also greatly complicated by the fact that the hundreds of thousands fires in Africa occur as widely dispersed small events, primarily related to agricultural seasons. Since nearly all fires in the region are caused by human activity, the reasons for these fires must be addressed, rather than simply increasing suppression capacity. National data on the underlying causes of fires are required, and only then will it be possible to develop national strategies for the appropriate use of fire as a management tool.
Very encouraging Community Based Fire Management programmes have been established in Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Goldammer et al., 2002). The positive and promising results of these projects show that, in Africa, the community approach is probably the only sustainable, long-term solution to improving the fire situation at the grassroots level.
There is a need to raise the awareness of local people and provide training to multiple level stakeholders in the proper use of fire as a management tool in rural activities at landscape level. There is also a need to apply an ecosystem approach, wherein all fires, regardless of its purpose (agriculture, land clearing, beekeeping, hunting, cooking, heating), are managed by the local people. With the national forestry departments as lead agency, all uses of fire should be coordinated by a community level fire management unit.
The major limitations for integrated and community based fire management are firstly budgetary constraints, missing infrastructure and capacities, and a social and political environment which is not sufficiently enabling or empowering the affected population to deal with the fire problem themselves. The challenge is how to convince policy makers to provide their support to the community. The issue of sharing responsibility and therefore power is a difficult equation in the political world.
“The prevailing lack of financial, infrastructural and equipment resources for fire management in the SADC Region and neighbouring Sub-Saharan Africa is aggravated by the lack of human resources adequately trained in fire management. The gap between the decreasing preparedness capabilities in fire management and the increasing fire problems in the SADC Region/Sub-Saharan Africa requires immediate response through capacity building (Goldammer and de Ronde, 2004)”.

    1. Past and related work done in the SADC region


The AfriFireNet, created in 2002, encourages countries to establish or expand cooperative and networking activities, and one of its first activities, the Wildland Fire Training Center Africa, was founded in cooperation with local partners in South Africa. Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) and the former coordinator of AfriFireNet prepared the Wildland Fire Management Handbook for sub-Saharan Africa (Goldammer and de Ronde, 2004).
A major national South African fire-management programme, Working on Fire (WoF), has created a remarkable people-centred approach to fire management – a labour-intensive initiative that provides training and empowerment for socially marginalized people (http://www.workingonfire.org/)
More recently (2006-2007) a FAO Technical Cooperation Project took place in Botswana and Zimbabwe which mainly focused on capacity building of basic fire fighting skills, crew leader training and participation in a study tour to South Africa. The specific project objectives are to reduce the extreme wildfire threat to food security, rural livelihoods and the natural environment, while also contributing to SADC-level cooperation on wildfire management. A similar project is under development for Swaziland.
FAO has facilitated the development of Fire Management Voluntary Guidelines which include basic principles, aspects and strategic actions (FAO, 2006). A methodology has been developed and used to strengthen capacity of developing countries, on how to use the principles and strategic actions detailed in the Guidelines for the development of national and regional fire management strategies, policies and practices (FAO, 2007).


  1. ZIMBAWE

    1. Damage by fires


Figure 2: Total burned area in Zimbabwe 2003-2012(1000ha)

FAO 2014
Zimbabwe is vulnerable to natural and other disasters that have adverse effects on communities, the national economy and the country’s development objectives. Despite the importance of forests and woodlands in the economy, there has been a general increase in the incidences of uncontrolled fires in Zimbabwe since year 2000. These fires have been particularly devastating in the newly resettled areas, gazetted forest areas, national parks and commercial timber plantations, resulting in loss of human life and property as well as destroying vegetation and small animals indiscriminately.

The loss and degradation of natural forest cover in Zimbabwe has increased dramatically over recent decades, and the country now has one of the highest annual deforestation rates in Africa at 1.7 percent over 2000-2005. More than 250 000 hectares (33 percent) of indigenous gazetted forests were destroyed by fires in 2005 alone. Fires destroyed also around 10 000 hectares of pine plantations, which represented about 11 percent of standing pine timber worth nearly Z$1.4 trillion (estimate in 2006). Thus, 2.5 rotation years were lost and this will result in erratic log supply and shortages being experienced in the next 20-25 years. These fires also killed and forced the migration of a number of wild animals that form the backbone of the tourism industry which is an important source of employment for Zimbabweans.

According to the Timber Producers Federation statistics the total forestry plantation losses due to fires were 38 697 hectares between 2000-2013.



    1. Causes of fires


The major concern in plantation forests has been land clearing for agriculture and forest fires. Most fires that occurred from 2004 to 2007 were of an anthropogenic origin and were caused by poachers, honey collectors, newly resettled farmers, arsonists and cigarette smokers. Further road users, train, trans-boundary incidences (e.g. with border with Botswana and Mozambique), power lines and farmers who do control burning to reduce organic matter cause forest fires.

The underlying reason for the increase has been land clearance for agriculture following the land reform programme. The situation has been exacerbated by the apparent confusion among community members and local politicians regarding government policy on resettlement on state forests and timber plantations.


    1. Institutional arrangements


The Ministry of Environment and Tourism, through its line departments - Zimbabwe Forestry Commission(ZFC) and Environmental Management Agency (EMA), function as the custodians of wild fires in Zimbabwe.

The ZFC operates under the Forest Act Chapter 19.05 of 1996: Part VIII - Control of Fires and Burning of Vegetation that specifies requirements for:



  • Provision of notice of intention to burn standing vegetation to occupiers of adjoining land and a police officer;

  • Provision and maintenance of fireguards on common boundaries;

  • Fires kindled on land of another to be controlled and extinguished;

  • Counter-firing;

  • Rights to recover damages; and

  • Procedures in regard to extinguishing of fire.

The EMA operates under Environmental Management Act Chapter 20:27 of 2003:


Part IV - Prevention of Fires of the Statutory Instrument 7 of 2007 that specifies requirements for:

  • Pre-suppression Measures:

  • Land owners or users shall put in place appropriate fire prevention measures on their land;

  • No person shall deliberately light a fire that he or she cannot extinguish:

  • No person shall light a fire outside residential or commercial premises during the period 31 July to 31 October of each year.

  • Suppression Measures:

  • The land user or landowner shall be responsible for extinguishing all fires on their land regardless of origin;

  • Any person within the vicinity of the fire shall carefully and properly extinguish that fire.

  • Post Suppression Measures:

  • Investigation and documentation of the cause of fire and the extent of damage.

A national fire protection strategy was developed in 2005 by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism with the participation of the Timber Producers Federation and all government departments within the Ministry. This strategy was launched in Manicaland Province in the east of the country during June 2006. While the fire strategy is situated within the Forestry Commission (state agency mandated for control and fighting wildfires), local and district provincial authorities are envisaged as key role players in its implementation. However, the implementation of fire strategy has been slow and is a gradual process. Lack of adequate capacity at national, provincial, district and local levels as well as the absence of an enabling environment allowing for interaction at a grassroots level as required in a participatory process has been among the main reasons for slow implementation of the strategy. The process will need to be re-activated and launched in the provinces. Identifying risks, hazards and putting in place vital preparedness plans and actions need local input to be locally pertinent.

The other major failure to effectively control the fires has been attributed to budgetary constraints, a reliance on fire suppression and legislative approaches (management practices of conducting early burning and complete forest resource protection), and lack of involvement of communities in forest management and fire preparedness. In recent years, the Forestry Commission have faced severe budgetary constrains to adopt adequate measures for effective control of forest fires or, indeed, enforcement of the Forest Act. (FAO 2008)



    1. Education and training


Forestry College in Mutare offers technical hands-on training on fire management, but higher education is not offered in Universities of Zimbabwe, except couple of lessons under the forest protection courses in the National University of Science and Technology of Zimbabwe (NUST).

    1. Problem to be addressed


Uncontrolled fires particularly in timber plantations and gazetted forests threaten the socio-economic and livelihoods of the many communities who rely on them. Most communities which are already at risk become more vulnerable because of several aggravating factors such as poverty, HIV/AIDS effects and environment degradation. This negative situation weakens the ability of people to cope and their ecosystem to withstand destruction. Every year, fire-prone provinces of Zimbabwe suffer damaging uncontrolled fires, and every wildfire that starts is a potential disaster event.

Various stakeholders addressed the need for awareness raising and education on fire management, as well as need for training on use of fire. It also came evident that the local communities and the Forestry Commission would need some hand tools to do controlled burnings and to fight escaped fires. When looking at the institutional arragements, the roles of Forestry Commission(FC) and Environmental Management Agency(EMA) should be clarified. EMA was recently established and its role is partly overlapping with FC and this seems to cause some friction between the two government institutions also on fire issues.



    1. Proposed activities


    • Facilitate series of awareness raising activities(e.g. TV and radio programmes, outdoor events), maybe linked to the National Fire Week activities in May, which are also supported by the Minister of Environment;

    • Organize short “training of trainers” courses at College of Forestry at Mutare by national and international experts (e.g. Working on Fire people from South Africa) on various topics related to fire management for FC, EMA and forestry companies staff and traditional leaders of local communities, university students, etc;

    • National University of Science and Technology of Zimbabwe (NUST) would benefit greatly from collaboration with Stellenboch University in South Africa in developing their forestry curricula, student exchange, research on fires impacts on environment and emissions, etc.;

    • Procure fire hand tools for local communities and FC staff and organize trainings for their use following the example of the recent TCP/ZIM/3302-project on community based fire management;

    • The South African voluntary Fire Protection Associations (FPAs) systems could also be piloted in carefully selected areas.Make forest policy and legislation “review” aiming at clarifying the roles of EMA and FC related to wildfire management, set relevant sustainable forestry standards for Zimbabwe and to find legal solution to prevent illegal settlers damaging forest resources of Zimbabwe. Policy review could benefit from the work recently done by the FAO National Forest Policy programme. The legislation review should find a away to prevent illegal settlements to change the land use in the areas they have occupied in forested areas(using South African example in Kruger Park).

All the activities should be linked with the ongoing EU funded FAOimplemented prorgamme in Zimbabwe aiming at strengthening the whole forestry sector. Zimbabwe has also very recently joined UN-REDD programme, which could include fire monitoring into the general forest monitoring system, they will set up for REDD prosesses.






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