By Anna Julia Lopes and Lucas Guaraldo*
Expanding collaboration between all the institutions involved in building fire management policies can significantly improve the fight against forest fires in the Legal Amazon, according to discussions at the Workshop for Fire Managers, held in Brasilia. The results of the event will be published in the Diagnosis of Fire Management in the Amazon States, which also includes data collected through interviews with 122 fire managers in the region. The document will bring together, for the first time, information on combating, managing and controlling fires in all the states of the Legal Amazon.
Coordinated by researchers from IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute), the event highlighted the need for more structured and continuous collaboration between the different levels of government and the various players involved. This includes federal, state and municipal governments, as well as fire departments, community and volunteer brigades, environmental secretariats, research institutions and civil society.
For Ane Alencar, IPAM’s Science Director and one of the organizers of the event, the diagnosis reveals the need for an “integration of visions”. According to her, the National Integrated Fire Management Policy (MIF), established by Law 14.944/2024, represents a breakthrough in bringing together different technical, cultural and ecological perspectives on the role of fire in the forest.
“We have a reality in the Amazon in which fire is a productive tool that is used. So what we need is to coordinate the use of fire so that it doesn’t become a weapon and doesn’t generate environmental degradation. That’s why we’re here together – among various agencies working on the issue, to see how we can boost fire management in Brazil,” he said.
In the opinion of André Lima, extraordinary secretary for Deforestation Control and Territorial Environmental Planning at the Ministry of the Environment, the focus of the National Fire Management Policy is precisely on preventing and preparing for fires, as the report advocates.
“We have now managed to organize ourselves much better and create a path towards strengthening a national fire management system, coordinated in an integrated manner. We need to tackle climate change and the effects of increased fires by working from the bottom up, strengthening communities and local and state governments, with the federal government providing support and acting in the most critical areas,” said Lima, in an interview with IPAM.
Building Integrated Fire Management
During the drafting of the National Integrated Fire Management Policy, traditional practices of the region’s peoples and communities, who have lived with the safe and sustainable use of fire in their fields for centuries, were taken into account. The use of prescribed and authorized burning during the dry season, for example, is one of the central strategies of integrated management to prevent large-scale fires.
However, due to the vast expanse of the Legal Amazon and the diversity of vegetation present in this territory, the workshop participants advocated more extensive and continuous training. According to reports, the policy needs to be understood in an integrated way and must include planning practices that go beyond the emergency control of uncontrolled fires, when the risks and costs are greater.
“It’s important to understand that the MIF takes an approach that goes beyond policies to combat forest fires. It focuses broadly on prevention, planning regular use and recognizing the traditional and adaptive use of fire,” explains Jarlene Gomes, a researcher at IPAM who also signed the diagnosis.
Future
For the future, the volume of resources – both ordinary and extraordinary – is expected to increase gradually. This is what Secretary André Lima says. “All governments have budgetary difficulties in all matters, especially in times of fiscal crisis when there is a seasonal or cyclical drop in revenue,” he says.
According to him, the federal government must continue to prioritize the use of resources for preservation, planning and preparation agendas. According to the secretary, compared to 2024, the federal government has already increased the number of firefighters by more than 20%, as well as increasing the resources of the Amazon Fund (R$400 million for the state governments of the Amazon; and R$150 million for the state governments of the Cerrado and Pantanal).
Cited by Lima, the focus on prevention is one of the points debated by the document, which says that the current model of fire governance, almost exclusively centered on fighting fires, perpetuates a cycle of “dependence on resources without significant advances in risk reduction”. The report cites as the most effective measures investment in technical and theoretical training; strengthening the resilience of communities; prioritizing risk reduction; early warning; and the development of sustainable public policies throughout the year.
As a guideline, the study indicates that “harmonization” between national and local policies is fundamental to make fire management viable in different scenarios in the future and that, although each state has made progress on the issue, a strategic plan with clear guidelines can improve the integration of these initiatives.
*iPAM journalists, anna.rodrigues@ipam.org.br and lucas.itaborahy@ipam.org.br