Doctoral Dissertation Research: Fire Breaks: Conservation Planning, Place Making, and Fractured Identities in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

Because tropical forest fires are a threat to global biodiversity, developing nations are implementing increasingly aggressive fire-suppression policies. Such management policies tend to reveal ignorance of indigenous fire-management strategies, such as those practiced by the Pemon in the Gran Sabana of Venezuela. As a result of state fire-suppression policies, the Gran Sabana now appears to have "contradictory" patterns of fire, with too much burning in the "wrong" places, in particular near permanent communities. At the same time, fire suppression combined with political-economic pressures and acculturation processes has led to a decline in traditional, prescriptive burning in forest/savanna boundaries. This decrease in burning in the "right" places may ultimately lead to excessive fuel accumulations and contribute to damaging fire events. To assess whether fire patterns in the Gran Sabana in fact are "contradictory," this doctoral dissertation research project will use participatory mapping and fuelbed, remote sensing, and statistical analysis to evaluate changes in fuel levels in the grasslands along riverine forests in the upper Rio Caroni river basin since roughly 1980. To assess the political-economic and cultural reasons for these contradictory fire patterns, the doctoral student will employ ethnographic methods and reviews of state documents to uncover changes in indigenous and state practices, knowledge, and representations of fire since roughly 1950. The project will integrate these biogeographical, technical, and ethnographic methods into a theoretical framework that draws from post-structural political ecology, landscape theory, and the work of social theorist Henri Lefebvre, and it will provide important primary data on fire patterns in savanna/forest boundaries in southeastern Venezuela. On a broader level, this study will contribute to the literature on social forestry, in particular to the emerging research on culturally sensitive and participatory forest fire management. Although such participatory practices show great promise for biodiversity conservation, tropical fire management in Venezuela and elsewhere continues to rely on traditional, technical methods. This conservatism is often inherent in the "institutional cultures" of state agencies, which may be influenced by social and political-economic imperatives, long-held notions of the inadequacy of indigenous knowledge, and erroneous but powerful ideas about the inherent danger of any sort of forest fire. At the same time, indigenous people may respond in contradictory and often unexpected ways to socially insensitive fire suppression policies, depending on particular social contexts and cultural processes. In the case of the Gran Sabana, some young Pemon now burn more in the "wrong" places to protest state policies, while many elders have abandoned prescriptive burning practices (such as in forest/savanna boundaries). Other elders, bowing to pressures from state agencies, neglect to teach their children appropriate uses of fire, which occasionally leads community members to mistakenly start large dry season fires. Ultimately, the case of the Gran Sabana suggests that fire management is not simply a technical issue but also a social, cultural, and political problem that can not be solved through fire-suppression strategies alone. This study will advance understanding of the intricate cultural, social factors, and political-economic pressures and tensions that lead to contradictory and often destructive burning practices. It therefore will make a fundamental contribution to biodiversity conservation and indigenous rights in tropical forest regions. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.