PREFACE - Sub-Sahara Africa – A Fire Subcontinent Fire is a widespread seasonal phenomenon in Africa. South of the equator, approximately 168 million hectares burn annually, nearly 17% of a total land base of 1014 million hectares, accounting for 37% of the dry matter burned globally. Savanna burning accounts for 50% of this total, with the remainder caused by the burning of fuelwood, agricultural residues, and slash from land clearing. Fires are started both by lightning and humans, but the relative share of fires caused by human intervention is rapidly increasing. Pastoralists use fire to stimulate grass growth for livestock, while subsistence agriculturalists use fire to remove unwanted biomass when clearing agricultural lands, and to eliminate unused agricultural resides after harvest. In addition, fires fuel by wood, charcoal or agricultural residues are the main source of domestic energy for cooking and heating. In most African ecosystems fire is a natural and beneficial disturbance of vegetation structure and composition, and in nutrient recycling and distribution. Nevertheless, substantial unwarranted and uncontrolled burning does occur across Africa, and effective actions to limit this are necessary to protect life, property, and fire-sensitive natural resources, and to reduce the current burden of emissions on the atmosphere with subsequent adverse effects on the global climate system and human health. Major problems arise at the interface between fire savannas, residential areas, agricultural systems, and those forests which are not adapted to fire. Although estimates of the total economic damage of African fires are not available, ecologically and economically important resources are increasingly being destroyed by fires crossing borders from a fire-adapted to a fire-sensitive environment. Fire is also contributing to widespread deforestation in many southern African countries. Most southern African countries have regulations governing the use and control of fire, although these are seldom enforced because of difficulties in punishing those responsible. 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 fires in Africa occur as hundreds of thousands of widely dispersed small events. With continuing population growth and a lack of economic development and alternative employment opportunities to subsistence agriculture, human pressure on the land is increasing, and widespread land transformation is occurring. Outside densely settled farming areas, the clearance of woodlands for timber, fuelwood and charcoal production is resulting in increased grass production, which in turn encourages intense dry season fires that suppress tree regeneration and increase tree mortality. In short, the trend is toward more fires. |