Scholarlink

Background <p>Savanna landscapes have returned to the centre of socio-environmental debate as climate variability, agricultural expansion, and prohibition-oriented policies reshape how fire is understood and governed. Focusing on Brazil’s largest maroon (quilombola) territory, we examine how Kalunga communities mobilize fire as both a productive technology and a preventive tool within agropastoral socioecological mosaics of the Cerrado. Our mixed-methods approach combines semi-structured interviews, participant observation across dry and wet seasons, and analysis of historical climate series (1980–2024) for precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, and wind.</p> Results <p>We show that <i>roças de toco</i> (rainfed swidden fields) form dynamic patchworks that sustain soil fertility, conserve useful native species, fragment fuel continuity, and may contribute to limiting wildfire spread. Cropping and grazing are coordinated through locally defined burning windows, ash-mediated nutrient inputs, and community firebreaks, producing landscapes that support livelihoods while regulating wildfire risk. Local perceptions of delayed rainy seasons, prolonged droughts, and “hot winds” are consistent with instrumental climate trends, indicating increasingly dry and flammable dry seasons, thereby narrowing the safety margins for controlled burning. Simultaneously, external pressures—including shifts towards poorly adapted cattle breeds, expansion of planted pastures, enforcement of “zero-fire” policies, and land conflicts—are reconfiguring local practices and redistributing risks. We argue that, in Kalunga systems, fire operates as a technology of socioecological governance, sustaining production while contributing to wildfire-risk reduction through fuel fragmentation, low-intensity burning practices, and community-based monitoring.</p> Conclusions <p>We conclude that blanket fire prohibitions should be replaced by co-managed governance arrangements that formalize locally defined burning windows, maintain community firebreaks, and integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge with technical criteria within adaptive and risk-aware fire and water governance frameworks in the Brazilian savanna.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Fire as a productive and preventive technology: traditional knowledge and risk governance in Kalunga agropastoral mosaics

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月5日

查看全文
  • Sílvia Laine Borges,
  • Ana Carla dos Santos,
  • Patrícia Santos Silva,
  • Isabel Belloni Schmidt

摘要

Background

Savanna landscapes have returned to the centre of socio-environmental debate as climate variability, agricultural expansion, and prohibition-oriented policies reshape how fire is understood and governed. Focusing on Brazil’s largest maroon (quilombola) territory, we examine how Kalunga communities mobilize fire as both a productive technology and a preventive tool within agropastoral socioecological mosaics of the Cerrado. Our mixed-methods approach combines semi-structured interviews, participant observation across dry and wet seasons, and analysis of historical climate series (1980–2024) for precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, and wind.

Results

We show that roças de toco (rainfed swidden fields) form dynamic patchworks that sustain soil fertility, conserve useful native species, fragment fuel continuity, and may contribute to limiting wildfire spread. Cropping and grazing are coordinated through locally defined burning windows, ash-mediated nutrient inputs, and community firebreaks, producing landscapes that support livelihoods while regulating wildfire risk. Local perceptions of delayed rainy seasons, prolonged droughts, and “hot winds” are consistent with instrumental climate trends, indicating increasingly dry and flammable dry seasons, thereby narrowing the safety margins for controlled burning. Simultaneously, external pressures—including shifts towards poorly adapted cattle breeds, expansion of planted pastures, enforcement of “zero-fire” policies, and land conflicts—are reconfiguring local practices and redistributing risks. We argue that, in Kalunga systems, fire operates as a technology of socioecological governance, sustaining production while contributing to wildfire-risk reduction through fuel fragmentation, low-intensity burning practices, and community-based monitoring.

Conclusions

We conclude that blanket fire prohibitions should be replaced by co-managed governance arrangements that formalize locally defined burning windows, maintain community firebreaks, and integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge with technical criteria within adaptive and risk-aware fire and water governance frameworks in the Brazilian savanna.