Spotlight #83 - Examining the Economic Drivers of Wildfire: Where There's Smoke, There's Finance

"The majority of global fire activity is human-caused and often linked to land degradation for the production of goods traded on the international market," says Dr. François-Nicolas Robinne, of the University of Alberta's Department of Renewable Resources, and Coordinator of IUFRO's Fire$: Economic Drivers of Global Wildland Fire Activity Task Force (TF).

His TF is looking into the nexus between the economic level of local populations, fire activity and effects on the provision of ecosystem services and the global appetite for international commodities.

"We would like to provide a comprehensive review of the economic drivers of fire activity across the world, from local issues (e.g., use of fire in traditional agriculture) to planetary markets (e.g., trade of goods coming from fire-degraded lands). Hopefully, this work can lead to better education and – one can dream – to concrete action to act on some of these main drivers," Dr. Robinne says.

Further reading:

• View all IUFRO Spotlights at https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
   

Files:

spotlight83-drivers-of-wildfire.pdf386 Ki