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The Social Dynamics of Fire Management with Vanessa Luna-Celino
- 2025/03/20
- 再生時間： 1分未満
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Good Fire Podcast by Amy Cardinal Christianson and Matthew KristoffStories of Indigenous fire stewardship, cultural and social empowerment and environmental integrityThe Social Dynamics of Fire Management with Vanessa Luna-CelinoEpisode highlightIn this episode, Vanessa Luna-Celino talks about how community-based fire management is the way to sustaining forests.ResourcesVanessa Luna-CelinoVanessa’s WebsiteDocumentary - Farmers and Fire: Local efforts in dealing with wildfires in PeruForbidden fire and the potential role of community-based fire management in the Peruvian AndesSponsorsCanada WildfireIndigenous Leadership InitiativeQuotes16.20 - 16.23: “Not every person in these peasant communities interacts with fire in the same way. There are of course power relationships and power dynamics; there are different needs of fire.” 29.57 - 30.12: “Part of my research also has to do with understanding the different narratives of what to do with fire and the role of fire in the landscape and for rural wellbeing.” TakeawaysMeet Vanessa Luna-Celino (02.58)Vanessa recently completed a PhD in Interdisciplinary Ecology from the University of Florida. She studied biology in her hometown, Lima, Peru, and then became interested in the social dimensions of conservation. Her PhD focussed on community-based fire management in the Peruvian Andes. She points out that with climate change, wildfires have become more commonplace in Peru. But with large populations living in the Andean and coastal regions, wildfires pose a threat.The people of the land (05.26)Vanessa has been working with communities who see annual wildfires ranging from 10 to 500+ hectares. While these fires may not be large, the territory they emerge in has been occupied for millennia, starting with the Inca empire to present- day Indigenous and mestizo (a mix of European and Indigenous descent) farmers. Most of this high Peruvian Andean landscape is filled with rural communities, called campesino communities, that collectively own and manage the land. Indigenous communities of Peru (8.20)Peru has a population of more than 30 million people, with a few million in the Andean region. The Indigenous groups who live in the south of the Andes are the Aymara and Quechua. In the Amazonian region, more than 60% of the territory has over 50 Indigenous groups, some only with a population of 500-1000 who speak their Indigenous language. The Indigenous group that has the most inhabitants in the country are the Quechua, who have been a part of Vanessa’s research.Finding Fire (09.22)Vanessa worked as a biologist at a biological station for many years in the Peruvian Andes and Amazon. Sometimes, a fire in the Quechua community on one side would spread into the national park on the other side and into the 600 hectares of biological station land, and she observed a complex relationship between the Indigenous Quechua group and the firefighters and park rangers, with farmers and cultural burning being blamed. She then began studying the cultural aspects of Indigenous peoples using fire.Complex dimensions of fire use (12.57)Vanessa was part of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program at the University of Florida which encourages researchers to partner with local communities, training them in a group on collaboration, conflict management, and Indigenous rights. She went back to her Indigenous coworkers and the surrounding community at the biological station with curiosity, wanting to simply begin her research by spending time with them and observing their approaches to and practices of fire. Differences in community practices (15.32)Vanessa considers herself blessed to have had the funding and time to spend a month each in every community over 3 fire seasons. She observed that different community members interact with fire in different ways, with farmers in remote areas using fire more than the ones in the main village. The community members slowly became more open when talking to Vanessa about their practices, once they understood she was there to learn and not instruct. The pros and cons of elevated farms (17.19)Vanessa found that rural areas need to use more fire due to the elevation and highly rugged landscape. These communities traditionally took advantage of the elevation differences to grow their traditional crops, with over 100 varieties of potatoes, and grapes and corn. Elevated farms that are surrounded by vegetation that has overgrown are the most vulnerable to having runaway fires, and it’s harder for them to access help to put out those fires. Approaches to fire (20.15)Vanessa notes that while Indigenous communities do use fire for rituals on a small scale, they don’t use it to manage the land. They learnt to use fire in their farms from the Spanish for agricultural purposes, to renew grass or get rid of residue. What is seen today on the farms is a blend of Indigenous and European agricultural practices. Communities see fire use ...