Wildfires are changing as the climate warms, and so too are the ways in which some ecosystems are responding to fire. In the Northwest and other regions around the world, changes in wildfires (read: bigger, more frequent, and in some cases, more severe), combined with warmer and drier conditions, are making it difficult for some ecosystems to return to their former states after fire. In these cases, the dominant species and functions in some areas of an ecosystem may change following fire (e.g., forests being replaced by grasslands or shrublands), in a process known as ecological transformation.
Post-fire transitions in vegetation, which are expected to increase under climate change, are causing significant impacts to ecosystems and the human communities that rely on them. Yet despite this risk, institutional and social constraints, combined with limited information on management strategies, have prevented land managers from keeping pace with this emerging climate challenge.
Exploring the facets of this challenge, a new NW CASC-supported study describes the types of information, coordination and values needed to manage post-fire vegetation shifts ethically and effectively as they become more common in the face of climate change. Drawing on lessons learned from the NW CASC’s 2020 Deep Dive on Managing Post-Fire Vegetation Change in a Warming Climate and the authors’ collective experiences, this study identifies three key needs for advancing the management of post-fire vegetation transitions: 1) centering Indigenous communities in collaborative management of fire-prone ecosystems, 2) developing decision-relevant science to inform pre- and post-fire management, and 3) supporting adaptive management through improved monitoring and information-sharing across geographic and organizational boundaries.
Tribal communities have played a key role in shaping fire regimes for millenia by applying complex systems of cultural knowledge and stewardship to manage ecosystems. However, Western science and land management policies focused on reducing human influence in fire-prone landscapes, along with continued colonization and systemic racism, have attempted to erase the key role that Indigenous people have played in their ecosystems and the reciprocal role that fire-adapted ecosystems play in the well-being of Indigenous communities. This paper asserts that understanding and managing vegetation transitions under climate change will require collaborative management that centers Indigenous communities, who have stewarded these landscapes for millenia, as focal decision makers. In the Northwest, scientists and resource managers can learn from case studies, such as the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership, around how to ethically engage Tribes in respectful and reciprocal partnerships for collaborative fire management.
The paper also identifies the need for more information on where and when these post-fire vegetation transitions may occur; possible tradeoffs of management strategies; and approaches for confronting uncertainty in decision making processes. Further, the paper stresses how improving long-term, landscape-scale monitoring and coordination across management entities will be necessary for enabling learning and adaptive management across boundaries.
Ultimately, this paper emphasizes that emerging frameworks and approaches for managing post-fire vegetation transitions call for scientists and managers to embrace multiple ways of knowing; acknowledge and disrupt power dynamics that led to the exclusion of Indigenous groups from management decisions; and let go of past assumptions about managing ecosystems after fire.
This paper, featured in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, was co-authored by U.S. Forest Service partners Kimberly Davis and Monique Wynecoop; former NW CASC Actionable Science Postdoc Mary Ann Rozance; NW CASC Research Fellowship Alumni Katherine Swensen, Drew Lyons and Charlotte Dohrn, and NW CASC University Director Meade Krosby.