I have visited this topic about forest/open heathland fires, the positive externalities of private property ownership, Tragedy of the Commons and the unintended consequences of Green not-so-benign neglect before (remember those bad fires in Australia?) before, but here’s a reminder, given recent fires in Spain, France, Greece and my native Suffolk in the UK:
Under its Green Deal and related policies, the European Union is designating 30% of the continent as nature-protected by 2030. Goals include increasing the amount of deadwood and the density of tree cover in forests. Whatever their environmental merit, such measures increase the amount of highly flammable fuel for fires, make it easier for blazes to spread and harder to extinguish.
The EU also wants at least a third of this protected land to fall under “strict protection,” which means it will be left “essentially undisturbed from human pressures and threats,” according to European Commission guidance. It allows for some natural disaster prevention measures, but only “when such activities are compatible with the conservation objectives of the areas on the basis of a case-by-case assessment,” the guidance says.
Ranchers and farmers in Spain and France have historically managed their land to mitigate the risk of megafires. But the EU’s regulations have made it harder for small farms to survive across Europe, accelerating a rural exodus. Red tape often hinders those who remain from carrying out preventive actions like controlled burns.
The European Forest Fire Information System publishes maps and data, updated daily, on the current blazes. They show considerable overlap between the protected nature areas in Spain and France and the wildfires. That suggests in addition to the vagaries of weather, a policy failure.
Blaming climate change is the default explanation these days for any natural disaster, but Europe’s costly solutions will make little difference to global temperatures. Better forest management and fire prevention can make a difference, however. And they would reduce the CO2 emissions from fires that now overwhelm much of the reduction from electric vehicles or other climate nostrums.
Some advocates of “rewilding” claim that fires are part of nature, and that over time, fires will trigger a response in the form, for example, of more fire-resistant species (also, certain seeds are only germinated once a fire has happened). That sounds plausible, but the problem is that in a densely populated part of the world, such as the UK southeast, people want the loveliness of nature but without a raging fire nearby, however “natural” that is. And it is worth remembering that even if you take out the Man-made global warming argument and accept that fires are part of nature – they are – that much of our visually attractive landscape is not the result of Man leaving nature alone, but of crafting and caring for it. (This all makes sense once, like good students of Aristotle, we recognise that Man is as much part of nature as a beetle, shark or buzzard).
In the meantime, I am doing the very non-atheist thing and praying for rain.
I saw a billboard in Idaho recently, “Log it, graze it, or burn it”. I didn’t understand it at first but now I do: these are the options. Nothing else. So make a choice.
Our forests will never again be wild so they must be managed. And for a long time now, in the US, they have been managed by “experts”…and so we burn every summer. Almost the entire Western US is covered in smoke at the moment. AZ and NM are ok for now; the Pacific Ocean beaches in OR and WA are ok, but in Eastern WA where I live…smoke.
People I know who live along the WA side of the Columbia River just upstream of Portland, say that if a big fire ever gets going in their area, it will be unstoppable and will burn all the way to Seattle. It’s the undergrowth that hasn’t been cleared in 50 years. Check out a map…that’s a LOT of acreage!
And to your post’s point, any government action going forward is likely to be exactly wrong and make things worse. It’s what government does. Every. Single. Time.