The Next Fire Won't Wait: Turning Knowledge, Technology and Community Action into Resilience - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, please join us for our next session.
And we are looking at the fact that we can't actually wait for the next fire before we act.
I'm just going to bring something up on the screen, please.
If you could please use your phones, get your phones out because we're going to play again.
We're going to play a game.
We've seen wildfires being reported on screen, on TVs.
We talk about them, but let's see how much you know about them.
The QR code, as you can see, is on the screen.
Please scan it.
We've also asked people beforehand, before this event to do exactly the same thing and to answer the question.
So please scan that QR code so that you can join in, and we can see who is going to get the gold star today.
Okay.
All right.
So, ladies and gentlemen, why are we here? We are, of course, confronting one of the fastest, fastest growing risks that is facing people and landscapes, and that is the wildfire.
And it's no longer happening over there because it's happening wherever you are right now.
It's not in the most vulnerable communities.
I left the UK and the UK was literally on fire.
Not even politically.
It was physically on fire as well.
Wildfires are everywhere, they matter to all of us.
This session is going to be different though.
You're not only going to be hearing from the experts.
We've got about 90 minutes and you're going to help us to shape the conversation through use of the mentimeter.
It's lovely to see some of the responses coming through.
We're also going to test some of your assumptions.
We're going to be using cahoot.
Um, yeah, this is very interactive.
No political statements, no technical dialogue statements.
We are playing today, playing to learn.
And we're hoping by doing this, we will help to identify practical action that needs to be taken before our next COP, which is Cp 18, or maybe even before Antalia as we head to Antalia.
And that isn't a matter of we're counting weeks now, aren't we? I mean, we could say months, but it is essentially weeks.
So that is why we are here today.
So let me just ask quick people very quickly whilst we just settle everything down.
We're just waiting for a few more people to join us in the room.
Can I just have a show of hands? How many people's countries, which of your countries have been on fire this season, this summer season? Okay, so I would say it's about half the room, half the room.
I mean, that says a lot, doesn't it? That already tells us a lot about how important this is.
So We're going to understand the challenge first.
So why are today's wildfires so different? I'm going to be discussing this with my guests as well as some of the responses that are coming out.
Joining me for our first discussion is the Vasri Nala, who is joining us from the UNCCD.
She's representing the UNCCD.
We also have Joa Judi, who is joining us from the FAO Global Fire Management Hub.
If you could join me onstage, please.
Thank you, Maria.
You introduced yourself earlier.
Thank you very much.
Mila Kuga, who joins us from impact.
If you could please join us.
A round of applause, please, ladies and gentlemen.
Okay, so before we discuss these solutions, why have wildfires become one of the defining challenges of our century? Now, 20 years ago, things were very different.
Like I said, there were forestry events.
You know, they happened elsewhere, not so close to home.
So I wonder if we could just take a look at the ti meter results that we've had.
If the results will come up, here we go.
Right? Let's take a quick look at that.
So What is contributing the most to today's fires? Why are they so different? Look at that.
We're.
We're to blame for everything, frankly.
Human activities has come up top amongst your thoughts, and then a lack of preparedness.
Yeah, lots of nations have been caught out on this and climate change.
So what are we doing to the state of the climate that's meant that we're aggravating and creating the perfect conditions for these wildfires to spread.
And it's good to see land degradation and weak governance as well.
We have to blame those in power.
Because obviously they are allowing a lot of those other issues and factors to take apart.
So I'm going to come to you first, Devashe.
People think about wildfires they associate them, like I said, as forest events.
We know that's not true.
Um, and also a fire is an emergency response, but it isn't.
So my question to you is, why is it important then for countries to begin viewing wildfires not only that, as a forestry issue, but also a broader land degradation.
Land degradation came up two responses.
So I think it came up third in the responses as a reason as to why they're different? Why and how does that play in? Why do we need that shift, that mindset shift? Okay.
Thank you so much.
Well, to be honest, I'm looking at the chart here, and I see human activity as the number one, let's say, or the highest causal that we've talked about.
I'll give an example of my region, South Asia, and my city, Kathmandu, which is the pollution rate in Kathmandu is quite high.
Not just because of, I mean, it's a valley like here Wulambata, not just because of the pollution inside produced by the valley, but because of slash and burn technique that is quite common in my region.
Slash and burn for those who might not know what it is, is basically after crop is harvest, slashing the harvest, burning the area, This was a old practice so that the land retains, basically its nutrition, and then the next cycle of harvest to be easy.
It's also the manual labor for this is less, but then that is one of the major factors of wildfire in my region.
There are other causes as well.
There's climate related.
I mean, I wouldn't say climate, but he has high temperature related wildfires as well, that is commonly in some of the rangeland and forests.
But these are some of the things that have not been talked about as much.
This is the same case in terms of, the pollution in Delhi.
We see it quite, um, rising very fast during these slash and burn years or during these months in the years.
Um, I would say shifting the narrative a little bit, changing the causal of wildfire happens.
Um, and also perhaps changing some of the methodology understanding within the community as well.
We often talk about indigenous knowledge.
It's very important to integrate indigenous knowledge.
But then what is important is for food security, in this case, since we are producing such a large number of food, it doesn't make sense to still stick to some of the indigenous knowledge when the land for food is decreasing.
I would say some of these narrative and putting it some of the perspective of what it does to the environment is very important.
Thank you very much.
And we are going to come to all of the points that you raised there.
I saw Milo looking across because I'm going to put the indigenous question to you because traditionally wildfires were managed and they were needed, they were part of the cycle.
So I'll be coming to you shortly to pick up on that point.
Just before I move on to you, Horia, Devasri, most of us in this room, We appreciate that wildfires have changed.
We understand those factors there.
You're in the business of communicating as a member of the UN CCD.
How have you found attempting to communicate this change in characteristic when it comes to wildfires with the general public or to those who could make the difference? How have you found that process? I think it's been a bit easier to talk about wildfire in terms of the magnitude of what it does, and in terms of which country is most prone to wildfire.
Before, it wasn't, let's say in Europe, the extent of wildfire that is spreading around in the Northern Hemisphere, it's very interesting because now the conversation is back in the table.
Now, there is a bit of more investment in understanding how it's caused.
Although it's still difficult to exactly determine whether it's a man made fire or if it is natural cause of fire.
But however, we have started to understand in what soil type, with what precipitation level, with what, let's say, biophysical precursor there is this induction of wildfire.
So now communication is much easier.
What is difficult is still to understand the impact of it, still to measure in, let's say, or quantify the amount of loss that we bear because of this fight.
It's not just about forests, lives that we have lost.
It's also about the ecosystem that we lose.
It's about cultural heritage of many communities that live in a certain area that is lost.
So quantifying that in a scientific terms is not, let's say, something that we have grasped, but that is something that we have to get to in terms of community.
I mean, if you were to turn around and say land degradation, most people on the street would go what on earth does that mean? What does that look like? But thank you very much to Esri.
Horia, your job is making sure that no one is lost once or even before, basically, because we're talking about integrated fire management.
What does that mean? Let's begin there.
Let me switch that on for you.
There you go.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for inviting me for this really important event here.
I mean, you mentioned already the urgency and we are all feeling it wherever we are, not only in our work, but in our lives actually, in our communities, in our forests.
The urgency is really there because fires are changing and the scale is changing, the intensity is changing, the complexity to manage them is changing and impact on people in the ground is really growing and this is a very important aspect that we are losing actually not only the forest, but people are losing their livelihoods, their lives, and we are losing the forest, which is important for people in the ground, but also important for humanity.
This is really an important discussion to have here.
The data we have in FA is really showing in the FRA that half of the land which is burning every year is forest.
So we are losing here very, very important resources, as I said, and that's why we cannot afford anymore to be reactive.
I see their preparedness came as the third.
Now we cannot do this anymore.
This is an urgent call for really to stop being reactive to more proactive, really proactive engagement with these challenges we are seeing and they are increasing.
Prevention is really key.
This is where what you mentioned, the integrated fire management comes in because integrated fire management is really about sustainable values of fire.
While reducing the negative impact of extreme wildfire, while focusing, as I said, on prevention and preparedness.
May, I'm going to jump in.
Did you say sustainable use of fire? Yes.
It This I will go back to the indigenous people stewardship fire stewardship.
Because as you said before, people were using fire for centuries and in certain regions actually, you manage fire with fire.
What does this mean, particularly in indigenous people's fire stewardship is that you reduce the biomass you have in the forest by using smaller controlled fires In the right season, the right place, even the day when you use them is chosen by people together by observing the wind, that you make sure that you are going to have a small fire to reduce the biomass and that will prevent us from having a mega fire.
This is, for instance, an example.
Here in FA we are building an indigenous people's network to discuss these issues and to bring actually the indigenous people's stewardship into the fire management.
This is really important.
So if I might continue what is included in this integrity fire management in FA in the Fire Hub, it is really about five Rs, which are the review and analysis.
So it's like the risk assessment, the risk reduction, the readiness, and then the response to recovery.
So it's really like a cycle of how to look based on the risk assessment and the preparedness and then move to the response.
And that helps actually government first to understand the complexity of a fire and the changes in fire and to be prepared long term strategies and also to integrate that in the existing policies because this is important.
The integrative management of fire is not something separate which happens in one institution or in one sector, it's something really which needs to be across the sectors.
That's why the Fire Hub, it's really important for that.
The Fire Hub was actually launched in 2023, and it's really many countries partners, communities together trying to apply and to get out from these boxes like very fragmented boxes of managing fire to something where people are working together.
How difficult or easy has it been to get countries into the hub or are they coming to you now? A things changing.
Actually, the countries are coming.
That's good.
Because there is an understanding of the need of such a hub where you can actually be integrative and bring the different good things which are happening in the ground at scale because we need to do that.
The challenges we are facing are really important.
Here I have we have already 22 countries actually in the implementation and improving data, improving data sharing, working on monitoring, improving the connections with communities, and we have countries actually in Latin America, Southern Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean.
Here, I need to mention our very generous donors for the Fire Hub.
And here we have also an interesting because it's not one donor.
There are many donors like Canada, France, Germany, the Republic of Korea, Portugal, and also Google Erk.
So it's really bringing a movement of donors, countries, other partners to create the right reaction for these challenges we are facing.
So apart from you mentioned Portugal there.
You have the list.
Any other European countries that should be in your help? We welcome the first considering what has happened this year.
We welcome every country to join the Fire Hub, of course.
Again, my last question, you mentioned readiness, preparedness, people that costs.
Are governments ready to pay to assign budget to that? Or is that one of the challenges? We see really a readiness to deal with this issue.
But I think the most important thing in the Fire HP is that if you need a mechanism where all these resources are coming together to create a synergy between the funds that not one country is funding the same things at a small scale, but rather really seeing why we can be complementary to use the funds in a meaningful way.
Horia, thank you very much.
Fascinating conversation.
Thank you for sharing your insights there.
I've learned a lot about it all.
Thank you.
Maria, I'm coming to you, please.
We've been headlining you from our first response.
The biggest wildfires traditionally, most people would have recognized them from school time.
We were taught about slash and burn.
How is that changed today when we look at the wildfires of today? I mean, communities such as yourself, a lot of the indigenous communities are taught how to detect a wildfire, how to use fire.
So from your experience and working within these communities, what is the single most important capability that every community should have before the next fire season begins? What should be there? Thank you.
Hello.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I think let me start by just putting it across that fire for indigenous people.
This is a relative.
We are relatives fire, we are relative to water, we are relative with wind.
But there are two sides of it for all.
There's a good fire.
We have fire for all of our ceremonies.
But if there's another side of it, if you mismanaged, it's going to be very, very destructive.
The same with the wind, the same with the water.
And I want to go a little bit, and if you look the relationship we have with the fire, that is what has been disrupted for many years, policies, laws beginning on how ownership of the land has been done.
If you look more answers are turning more indigenous peoples have lost their land, and the governance of that land has changed into either state or quasi government state managed, and very little land of it is managed by indigenous peoples.
And we used fire to control main diseases for livestock, I mean, to pest control and also invasive species.
So while wildfires have also increased in many former indigenous people's territories, also invasive species, most fire was used for that.
But the fire was used in different seasons.
Just the wind different landscapes use different systems for that.
And for right now, since land ownership and land governance change, it has been very difficult for indigenous peoples to access and use their own skill because right now we can't use it.
Because of the laws, because of that.
But that leads also to another thing that why human activities and all that is related.
You have also broken.
When the land system and ownership change, the food systems do change.
So in a number of areas that I know in Kenya that have been affected by fires are national parks, game reserves, and other protected areas.
And this is because some of the people sneak into these areas to try and get food, wild honey, they try to do get food in terms of what they call what we call right now poaching, while we call food.
And then you are quick to leave and accidentally you lit the fire and it goes.
But there are also other beliefs, for us, the Maasai speakers, if you see fire on top of Mount Kenya, they say, Oh, now, rains are coming.
I think the Maasai every time there's a bad drought, they believe that every time there have been a wildfire on top of Mount Kenya, there will be a number of things have changed.
We have broken the relationship that people have with their land.
That's one thing.
And it is continuing right now.
And what is required is to strengthen that relationship that we do have with the land.
And this can be done by having inclusive and people centered laws that allow us to co manage.
I visited a number of I've been to California and I visited and learned imaging practices of core management.
Where the American natives are allowed to manage, I mean, the forest service to manage because they to bring back the indigenous people's knowledge in the management as a way to address a fire.
And I've been there practical and undergone that course and to see how it happens.
And they are bringing through core management.
So that relationship has been broken in the past, we need to strengthen that relationship by ensuring that we bring back the relationship people and livestock diseases are on the increase also because we no longer can use can use our traditional ways of using fire to control pests and other challenges we used to have, and also invasive species, areas where if it is not fire, fires, we have invasive species.
And the invasive species connecting with the natural plants and biomass within the forest even make the fire management even more worse.
And these things are related to the ownership, areas which people have been detached completely.
The worse in terms of invasive species.
So it's not just about fire.
It's an array of other things.
Can I just jump in very quickly? I want you all three of you rather to just go back to our results on Mentimeter.
When you saw human activities coming up, What was the one human activity you associated with it? What popped up into your mind? I want an actual human activity.
What did you think? Oh, yeah, that's that.
I'm just wondering, is it the same activity or is your perspective different? Because in the UK, we've got fires in the countryside and we're all going, Well, somebody's dropped a cigarette or for us, that's the human activity.
What would your thoughts be on a human activity? Molly, just very quickly.
Human I've mentioned that one.
Human activities, people trying to seek food wild honey in the forest, a forest that once had free access, and I'll go freely out all the time to harvest my honey leave.
Right now, you sneak into the forest so that the Kenya Forest Service can't see you.
You sneak into the game park so that the Kenya Wildlife Service can't see you, and then you leave, you leave, and then the fire because of the wind.
But initially, the same activity used to happen, but you do it in a plan.
Because you use honey you use fire to collect the honey intends to generate the smoke.
But you're not being given the time to control that fire.
You have lost relationship with that plant.
Okay.
You need the food, you need the honey.
It's in a protected area.
Okay.
So it's illegal.
You can be arrested You can be arrested if they find you there.
So you sneak in quickly, get out.
And if you see me or something, they have seen me, so you run away perhaps.
So there's no appreciation then of local customs.
There hasn't been that appreciation of what you need as well.
That's how I'm interpreting that.
I don't know if you would agree with me.
This is now coming Kenyan government has been trying to do a number of things.
For instance, to bring back that relationship.
Creating, for instance, community forest associations where you do participatory forest management and identify what kind of activities you want to do in the forest and within the law.
So in cod community managed forest is less of these because of this kind of management.
So this is is improving.
That's a fantastic story.
I don't think anybody in that room has heard that story.
Thank you for sharing it.
Horier, what's your human activity that popped into your mind? Well, I think we need to take maybe a step back and think about what is because human activity was always there.
What is changing in the human activity or what are the factors actually coming together to make that maybe fire can become quickly to Omega fire.
Here, it's really a complex story because if we look, for instance, at the impact of climate change, the increasing temperature and other factors, the biomass in the forest and many of the winds.
I would say we need to be careful on thinking about what causes the fire and we need more data, and this is where the fire have forenses is important.
We need more data to understand better what does this mean exactly when people here in the room are saying human activity.
I'm saying that because they are cascading effect of different factors coming together, which makes the fire which have been a small fire to a mega fire.
They are like data and science they are both.
We can find, for instance, places where data is showing the frequency of the fire increases where you have more people, but the intensity of the fire is less because people manage the fire.
So you might have more fire.
You see, oh, more fire is coming, but at the end of the day, this fire doesn't become mega fire.
Why? Because we have people in the ground dealing with it.
So I would like here just to say that people in the ground, communities, indigenous peoples, they are the stewards in their landscapes.
So their role here is super important in the management of the fire.
And that's why I mean, this human activity, we need to look at it really in a positive way too, that when we have people in the ground who are well, you know, equipped with what they need, they will manage the fire because they are the first ones who will be there when the fire is coming.
Horia, thank you very much.
Davesro, what popped into your mind? How do you interpret that? Thank you so much.
First of all, I'm learning so much from the panel Shant we just? Yes.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
I mean, there are so many ideas, there are so many concepts that you put in perspective.
I mean, I look at maps and data, satellite imagery, but this really is amazing.
Thank you so much.
Let's go to a bit of a science, but I would say a bit of a high school, kind of a logic of what human activity, according to my understanding would be.
If we look at climate change, climate change has been here since the existence of Earth.
If we look at anthropogenic climate change because of which human induced climate change, because of which the intensity, because of which the amount of forest fire or wildfire has increased, I would say that human activity is that anthropogenic climate change.
So the human activity because of which climate change has been amplified, intensified, changed.
So I would put anthropogenic climate change in that bucket where we talk about human activity.
So that is one thing that I would connect as one of the reasons why human activity has the highest grade, and my mind is stuck in slash and burn.
I'm so sorry, colleagues.
This is also coming from our understanding from South Asia.
That is one of the major reasons in terms of why we have the highest number of wildfires in this region.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much.
Right.
Just before we move on to our next quiz with Kahoot, if we do need any login details, I'm just going to ask my audio visual team just to get those ready, please, for Kahoot.
We've got I'm only giving you 45 seconds, okay? I'm keen to see if you three will agree as to this 10 million pounds that I've now got and I want to invest it in wildfire management.
I can only put it in one place.
So please don't give me a list, and you've only got 1 minute to tell me where you'd like that money to go.
Molly, where would you like the 10 million pounds, please? Let's stick with dollars.
Whatever it is, it will be university people, relationship with their land.
Indigenous people stewardship and integration in the policy level.
Dache.
I would also second that with stewardship and also good land management policy.
All right.
I'm going to stop you there because you're all referring to wildfire or rather it's coming across as if wildfires now, and we've just said that wildfires characteristics are changing are within traditional settings, but they're not.
So I'd like to know where is the traditional community on the California coast when we see it burning every year, or are those separate conversations? Just give me a definition because we're only talking about wildfires now because it's happening there.
Wildfires have been going on for so long in traditional parts of the globe.
So does that change your perspective or not? Well, I would say the nature of wildfire, as we discussed here, is it doesn't differentiate as to where it starts, where it's coming from, how it starts, and the intensity and the magnitude, which I also learned, which is very interesting, is I didn't know that when there's human settlement, it can be managed better.
I didn't know that there's that sort of data, but it makes total sense.
But what I would also like to say that now today, even in our repository with G 20 Global Initiative, we have a portal, our geospatial portal in which thanks to MODIS, thanks to NASA, we have a very good repository of dataset where we can understand where the intensity and the frequency of wildfire is the most around the globe.
In California, this is one of the regions that is actually prone to wildfire.
The thing is the reason why all of us mention land management is because that is also one of the major parts of, let's say, controlling wildfire of resilience.
But resilience not just because of the government but resilience within the community.
Now it's very easy to track and trace which bush is more prone to wildfire.
And which area has been more prone to wild Fi.
It's not that we don't have dataset.
It's that we don't have enough, number one, land stewardship, not just an indigenous community within our communities, but also we don't have so much preparedness by the government, by not just federal, but local government, local entities to control the amount of fire that is happening.
So I would bring it again back to having a strong base with data that we already have available.
Of course, we cannot differentiate it if it is human led fire or if it is, let's say, natural fire, but it doesn't matter, in my opinion.
As long as we are prepared enough to combat it, and as you mentioned, if we are able to combat it with a readiness manner, it really doesn't matter.
Now we have enough dataset to manage that.
Okay, we're just going to very quickly, just so everybody we're not wasting time, just put up the kahoot pin on the screen.
Can we just put that up for everybody? Could you all log into that, please? Because I will kick off the quiz in a short time.
When I see the phones come down, I will take it that you're all ready.
In the meantime, Molly, whilst everybody's doing that, Oh, good.
It's lovely to see everybody's names.
Very quickly, would you change your perspective or definitely in people, that is where you think the money should go.
I don't really I don't change my mind because to me, if you strengthen relationship that indigenous peoples or any community having within their own natural resource, then they could be monitoring the ecosystem.
They're able to monitor and even detect fires pretty clearly.
But that gap, even if you do other things, the local people will apply their knowledge to continuously monitor what species of plant species that are invasive and they can manage these.
And if you let them apply their knowledge, to me, you're already handling it at the grassroot level.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
Are we ready? We've got a lovely group of people there.
Let us begin the quiz.
Press Start, please.
And I believe it's true or false to begin with.
Here we go.
Most wildfires worldwide are started by lightning, true or false.
Okay, reveal the answer, please.
The answer is actually false, by the way.
All right.
Next question.
Which investment delivers the greatest long term return for reducing wildfire losses? Firefighting aircraft.
We've just done that one.
Can we just move on to the next one? Which investment delivers the greatest long term return for reducing wildfire losses? Is it firefighting aircraft, helicopters, prevention and preparedness, emergency response equipment? What is the correct answer? I think we'll set the timer for 10 seconds, yeah.
Prevention and preparedness.
Yeah, most of you got that right.
Brilliant.
Next question, please.
Which approach provides the earliest and most reliable wildfire detection? Is it artificial intelligence, satellite monitoring, community monitoring, a combination of satellite detection and local reporting.
And you've got 15 seconds.
Oh, we've already got it.
A combination of satellite detection and local reporting.
Oh, who doesn't believe it? I just saw that face come up.
Before we go to the next question, panelists, what do you make of those? Do you think it's pretty spot on that you'd expect the room to get those answers right? Any comeback or any feedback from those? Korea? Yeah, I think again here, integration is super important.
There isn't one solution for all, you know, the issues we are seeing with fire.
For instance, in the Fire Hub, it's built on five pillars which will explain a little bit why the combination and the integration is coming here very strongly.
We need knowledge sharing.
We need because fire sometimes, you know, It happens everywhere, but it's also context specific.
We need to look at the knowledge, what kind of knowledge we have there, the capacity development we have there, the wildfire resilient communities that we have been talking about that, and the risk reduction and early learning, which is also coming here strongly, but also mainstreaming the integrative approach into policies.
Those are the five pillars and they are built exactly to respond to this integrative approach which is needed here.
We cannot say one solution here, one solution there.
We need to have a holistic approach if we want to get really control over this situation.
As we were talking about preparedness.
If that is the case, why is it then that governments they continue to invest in emergency responses rather than prevention? What's your insight with that? I think it's difficult.
It's preparedness, as you just mentioned, it's a bit more holistic.
It's a bit more holistic and it's a bit more difficult in many contexts.
We always jumped to the emergency response in many contexts.
We've seen that with multiple governments where emergency response is the first thing that they do because they've already seen the incident happen.
In many cases, it's difficult for countries to fathom how strong the intensity could be and the frequency.
In case of Germany, near Bonn, where our head office is, currently, we have the most deadliest wildfire in the region.
Not in terms of human lives that we have lost, but in terms of the ecosystem that has been burned and the magnitude was huge.
But this was something that the country hadn't fathomed before.
Even though there have been incidents, but the intensity and how fast and quick it spread, it was not something that the country had fathomed.
So I think it's easier, and it's also human nature in many contexts.
When you see it, it's easy to respond.
But when not, it's, you know, out of sight, out of mind.
It's often the case, isn't it? And Mali, obviously with the late this last question here, technology has transformed wildfire detection.
But of course, technology doesn't work alone, as we've learned and community reporting included there.
From an operational perspective, why do you think combining tech and local information is so important, particularly in the first hours of a wildfire? What experience have you had with that? Yeah.
First of all, I don't have much experience in terms of technology, but I know that the combination of indigenous traditional knowledge and practices with technology can produce amazing report.
So it's a question of how ethical the technology is to be able to allow indigenous people to provide information and to use it so it doesn't become a burden.
To me, I know it can be very amazing to it can produce a lot of good results about training, use of technology, but also none of the solutions can work alone.
Nothing.
Let me just rephrase them here.
The fissure to anything in this world currently is about how connected you are.
Government connect to government, indigenous people cooperating with the other indigenous connect to government.
That's where the strength is connectivity, relational horizontal vertical relationships and recognizing the weak and the strength of each other.
The future is about how better connected you'll be for things like the resilience are just works, but how you are able to articulate that in practice.
And this is where relationships and trust are.
If people trust technology, it will work.
If they don't, If they think you are surveilling their own secret sites or all that, they'll keep away.
People are using phones because it's connected to the world.
And my mom, if you send money through a mobile phone, she knows a message.
I tell her, how do you know a message that money has been mobile money? And how do you know a normal message and these other ones.
He says this one as a combination.
She explains words and numbers.
She's been able to detect that by just seeing a message.
And this is about money.
Okay.
Our next question very quickly, please.
Which of the following ecosystems can benefit from periodic low intensity fire? You have 30 seconds.
Which of the following ecosystems can benefit from periodic low intensity fire? Are we too fast for you? We only got nine answers in there.
Essentially, it's all of the above.
And I'm going to end this session on this final question.
Could we have the question up, please? Who has the greatest responsibility or what is the most effective governance model for reducing wildfire risk? Where does responsibility lie? Is it the governments, the scientists, the communities, or all of the above? Yeah.
Okay.
It's everyone, basically, when it comes to managing fires.
And just to close this panel, we have a second panel coming up very quickly.
And again, another quiz.
30 seconds.
What is the one contribution that your particular organization has brought or can bring to wildfire resilience devs? 45/32, in fact, 30 seconds.
30 seconds.
I'll try to make it quick.
Something that we've discussed in the panel and I truly believe is citizen scientists.
That is where first reporters or responders of an incident would be.
I think our platform, Global Restoration Information Hub, brings both science, which is satellite imagery and citizen science together in understanding wildfire.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hoa, your contribution to wildfire resilience.
Well, what we are seeing really in the Fire Hub is the the implementation of the integrated fire management, which is happening actually in the countries who are joining, they are implementing it.
The second one allow me is really this Indigenous people's network, and actually, it's led by Indigenous people network, which is linked to the Fire Hub where we are really trying to bring the indigenous knowledge into all the components of the Fire Hub.
Mali, your contribution to resilience, wildfire resilience, use of bicultural protocol for land management.
That's the shortest answer.
You get a gold star for sticking to time.
Okay, a huge round of applause for our first panel, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
How do we build a resilient landscape? Could I have on the stage, please, Carl Pete from the Global Wildfire Collective, Mini Deegan from the FSC Indigenous Foundation, Santiago Garcia from the Environmental Defense Fund.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Please take your spots on the stage.
Nobody wants to be on there.
Go ahead.
Okay, so I learned a lot in that particular session.
I'm not too sure about the rest of the audience, but yeah, I'll be going back and spreading the word.
All right, we have a quick multimeter segment, and we asked if you could invest in only one area to strengthen wildfire resilience over the next five years, where would you invest? If you could invest in only one area to strengthen wildfire resilience over the next five years, where would you invest? And the results were Let's have a look.
Oh, community preparedness and local capacity.
Okay, I'm going to take that straight to my panel.
What do you think about that? Community preparedness and local capacity, Karl, your thoughts? Should we switch it on? Yep.
Switched on.
Okay.
Hello, everyone.
I have to first start by saying, this is the nicest panel venue I've ever seen in my life, seeing the sky and the light.
So thank you to Environmental Defense Fund, to the UN CCD Secretary for the opportunity to join this discussion.
So the question, although I'm dazzled by the clouds, is the investments in community preparedness, correct? Yeah.
So I think I would start by saying, It's And I say this from the perspective of an organization.
My NGO is the Conservation Biology Institute, and we have created or we've kicked off the Global Wildfire Collective as an initiative.
But although we're very science based in our approaches, we work in modeling, we work in decision support tools, and really science and evidence based analysis.
But It's really just one half of the coin, and it's really, really critical that any so called technical solution is really rooted in local and indigenous knowledge and community members are really the first responders and the front line when wildfire happens.
But of course, what we're working toward is bringing community into these decision making processes, preparedness processes much earlier in the game so we can avoid some of those ignition incidents.
Okay, so we have good wildfire initiatives that are out there, Karl.
What stops them from being adopted globally, though? So from the perspective of the global wildfire collective, I would say there are three critical disconnects that we need to address to scale these solutions globally.
So the first that I would point out is a disconnect between research and practice.
And we see this in a recent example from Croatia, the Omish area on the Adriatic coast was tragically lost to fire and local researchers had done a lot of of work to kind of see those vulnerabilities.
And, of course, they had been communicated in a session maybe like this, and there was a real desire to bring those to the practitioners, to those who are responding on the ground.
But there just wasn't enough funding to do that.
So then to see this loss is sort of doubly tragic when we have that knowledge.
And so, again, it's important to address that disconnect between research and practice.
A second disconnect that's critical is between Information and operations.
An example of this is from Pakistan.
I spoke with colleagues from the delegation actually just yesterday and they described a disconnect between getting information, critical local on the ground information from the provinces to central government in order to incorporate, analyze this information on incidents and to be able to operationalize it before the next fire season.
And so From a global wildfire collective response, we offer or we are contributing decision support tools, digital platforms to make this a bit more seamless and to address that piece.
And a third disconnect and really building on a lot of the remarks from the first panel is this disconnect between indigenous and non indigenous approaches.
And so a key effort that we are Advancing within the Global Wildfire Collective is known as the Fire modeling literacy program.
It's something we've recently launched just at the end of June, something I could talk at length about, but I won't do it right now, but I'd love to talk with you after any of you who are interested.
But really, it's again, bringing a so called scientific approach.
I really want to be critical of the way we use these words, so I'll come back to that.
But it's really to bring modeling into a very practical application to get it out of the lab, out of the conference room, out of the proceedings.
But I really feel that models are useful only in so far as we know models are only as good as their inputs and the critical inputs are those that have accumulated over millennia by local and indigenous communities.
I think while I do feel that so called science and technology are a very useful tool and a critical part of the solution, they really need to be based in indigenous knowledge and experience.
Beautiful transition, Karl, to my next question and my next guest.
What, Mini does a meaningful indigenous relationship or leadership look like when it comes to wildfire governance? We just heard there, Carl stressing just how important it is for it to be meaningful.
What would it look like and what still needs to change for governments to move from consultation to a genuine partnership? Thank you for that question because I think it's getting lost that indigenous people's knowledge has something to contribute, but we also do not want to just be contributing without actually being respected.
When we talk of meaningful participation, meaningful relationship, I think first and foremost is that indigenous people's rights to their lands and territories must be respected.
If I have money to invest, that would be where I would put it.
Because when indigenous peoples own and feel that they own the land and the territory the need to defend it comes very naturally.
And that has happened in my country when the Department of Energy Environment said that the forests are public lands and it's in the domain of the government.
When forest fires happen, the people do not want to go and, you know, to help put off the fire.
When I was younger, it was an automatic response of the community to go as a community to put off the fire.
But when the government said that we do not own those forests, we have no rights over it, then that responsibility like, oh, it's government, that government take care of it.
So that I think is first and foremost.
Before we talk of the knowledge, we have to talk about ownership and rights.
So when we talk of investing in community preparedness, that goes into tenure security, respecting traditional knowledge and ensuring that indigenous peoples are full participants in decision making processes.
So it is not tokenistic approach of, okay, we have a fire Management bureau and there's one indigenous person because that is not how effective and full partnership is.
Okay.
What would you change then what mechanism would you use? First and foremost, I think government scientists should really fully respect indigenous peoples as equals.
I think we have to start from a relationship of equity.
So governments, scientists and stop calling our slash and burn as a cause of fires because the slash and burn that we have been doing has actually been very effective at preventing wild forest fires.
So what needs to change first is respect.
We have to come from that perspective of indigenous peoples have knowledge to share as do scientists have.
Our knowledge is science.
It has evolved from continuous interaction with the environment, from continuous observation, which is the same with that science.
So not because our knowledge has not been written down does not make it any less valuable than what is written science.
So we have to start from that perspective of respecting indigenous people's knowledge and identities.
Thank you very much.
So rectify the power imbalance when it comes to that, essentially, sharing the leadership.
Okay, we're going to come back to the Mentimeter before I move on to our third guest on the panel, and just to give you a heads up, that is Santiago Garcia.
The Mentimeter question was, and it was a word cloud that we were aiming for.
What are two actions that communities can take to reduce wildfire? What are two actions that communities can take to reduce wildfire? We had single word responses just before Cop 17.
Let's have a look at this cloud.
Here we go.
Let's just absorb that for a minute.
What jumps out to you there, Santiago? First off, Va.
Va.
Well, I would like to approach this question based on our experience as EDF, the last climate Chat cop, we launched one initiative, Wild Fi action accelerator, where we bring more than 40 organizations, all of them indigenous organizations.
Why we decide to approach the issue related wildfire is because this is a multidimensional problem.
It's like a kind of wicked problem.
This problem has a final solution.
It very high context dependent.
One of the previous question was why prepared is so important? Because in terms of financial costs, when we have to face one wildfire event that require probably 80% of the funds facing one event versus a 20% of preparedness.
So it's most cost efficient.
Try to prepare people to Avoid the occurrence of Wi Fi events.
A good example that we learned it was in a workshop that we had a few months ago where we bring people from Parquez Nationales Argentina.
Early this year in January, there was one of the biggest fire events in Argentina.
A couple of things that bring our attention was first, this buy of Parques Argentina, they have a technology for monitoring Wi Fi events.
Event was reported by human efforts, it was detected first by humans rather than technology like 20 hours.
The second learning lesson was that they told us that this single event consume more than 90% of the national park in the year budget that they have.
The total cost was more than $20 million for the Wi Fi event in general.
Going back to the question here, I would say that cooperation, as we see it as a multidimensional problem, we have different types of stakeholder with different types of interests.
One of the main challenge and something that my colleague Mally mentioned before is wildfires is not something that is absolute, is good or bad.
There is some element that is stroke connected with cultural values, with good practices.
Fire is a natural element in most of the ecosystem, but one of the problems that we can see now is that people in boreal countries, Nordic countries, they approach wildfires again as a part of the ecological problems.
When we have discussions about wildfires in the tropics, We there is a certain bias that we not make this association as a natural element in the tropical forests.
But right now some drivers like a climate change has produced that wildfires events occur more frequently and more intenses and good example of that is the wildfires event that were reported in Peru, Bolivia a few years ago.
Okay, so you just so that I can just remind our audience, Santiago was referring to the Wildfire action accelerator.
So, Santiago, how would you accelerate then, collaboration into action? What's the first thing you'd do or suggest? Well, there is always too much discussion between if we want to use technology or technological solutions for some kind of problems in nature, like a climate change, like a wildfi events.
And there is another company who we can combine traditional knowledge or cultural practices for these kind of solutions.
Right now, there are many initiatives that are supporting for a multilateral organization of different countries like the use of satellit for monitoring Wildfi events.
This is a magnific opportunity However, we need to combine this kind of technology with local knowledge.
We need to make the connection with what's happening on the ground because on the other hand, if we have the capacity to monitoring wildfire events from monitor center, we only have the chain to see imagines without any context.
This is why it's important.
We need to bring local communities and local perspective.
And together, the Western knowledge and traditional knowledge, we can maximize these tools in order to normally be able to detect this kind of event.
In order to have the capacity to prevent those events or provider respond in a more efficient manner to those events.
Thank you very much for that.
Karl, I just want to come back to you.
I've got a follow up question on something you said earlier.
If you're going to strengthen just one partnership, seeing as we're talking about collaboration here, on a global scale over a five year time, which partnership would you prioritize? So I feel like we are kind of re emphasizing and reinforcing a number of common points, which is really exciting to me to sort of yeah, hear this integration.
So I think really what I would emphasize is What we've just heard from Min and from Santiago is to strengthen the indigenous and non indigenous partnership.
I think the again, coming from an NGO that does have a basis in science and conservation biology, That's going to move forward, and technology is going to move forward, and AI is hot, and obviously these tools are really helpful.
But I really do see, you know, I guess, the foundation is indigenous science, indigenous technology to break down the idea that these words science and technology are something modern, something Western, something that you can that you need to recharge or something like that.
So I think I see them more as just an extension, a tool, a way to, you know, the indigenous understanding and experience to me is kind of the superhero, and the so called modern technology is really just an extension or the magic Lasso, if you will.
Minnie, you said, obviously, respect is a big part of this when it comes to relationships with indigenous communities.
Do you have a best case study that you can share with us where the governments have got it right? Because often they say, yes, we're going to do it.
We work with the communities, but they still make mistakes.
They still make mistakes.
I mean, what's the one mistake they do make and where have they got it right? What did they do right? I've been trying very hard to come up with a positive example.
I really can't think of one because I think what government has tried and I don't blame them because of the huge impact of forest fires.
So what they do is get consultants outside to come up and come up with solutions, and then they take on the management because they have the resources.
And so they hire all these other outsiders and do the fire management.
Whereas, if they have spoken with the communities, indigenous or non indigenous, the communities who are directly affected, they would have gotten a better response because it's the communities who know how the winds shift, how the temperature shift.
So again, I think the government has to step back and really reflect where the most effective use of resources is, is investing in communities where the effects are most felt.
Okay, one question to all three of you.
I only need about a minute to respond to this.
Cp 18, Are we being realistic in me saying to you, what concrete action would put hope in your heart to say, we are moving in the right direction, or am I being unrealistic that it can be achieved by CP 18? Is there a concrete action that would give you hope to be sitting here, cop 18 discussing wildfires, saying, we've done it.
Tick, let's move on to the next thing.
What would give you hope in terms of progress on this topic? Santiago, I'm coming to you first.
I see.
Personally, I had a lot of hope in the role of civil society in general.
Right now, we have the ability to be connected and reach out different decision makers and probably the action of the civil society is so important because as the session mentioned wildfire as an event happening fire.
It's something that is in our lives and day by day.
It's a risk that is affecting our cities, our communities.
And a civil society, we need to require politician, decision makers to include wildfires in the agenda, and that's mean provide more opportunities for capacity building, provide more funding for preparedness, provide more strategic information about how the civil society can respond to the next event in Gena.
After wildfires take place, also is a good opportunity to talk about restoration.
This restoration is something that goes more like ecological restoration.
It's a cultural restoration where different elements in the society, including indigenous people, including national and local governments, the productive sector have the opportunity to shade landscape that can be resilient and that can be very productive in terms of the regeneration of landscapes of matrixia Just time for minutes.
A headmistress here.
Mini? Oh, very short.
Reinstate into the agenda, indigenous peoples, gender, youth, and synergies.
Without this in the agenda and without allowing indigenous peoples full and effective participation in the discussions of the UN CCD, there is no hope, not just for wildfires, but for all the elements under the UNCCD.
Please, hopefully in CP 18, we are back in the agenda and we are there as full participants.
No progress if you're not at the table.
Yeah.
Karl, So we're very excited, again, speaking for the Global Wildfire Collective, to see the kind of pulling together of parties across the three RIO conventions on the importance of addressing and looking for wildfire resilience solutions.
And so in this way, we have created a proposal for a joint work program on wildfire resilience across the three conventions, and it's gained signatures from 32 countries I expressed by another 24, so that's more than a quarter of the countries.
And what's interesting is it's the South Pacific, it's West Africa, it's the Nordic, the Balkans, the Caucuseus.
So, across the board, there's real recognition of the need to bring this into the conversations we have here in the global processes to cut across the three Rio conventions and to incorporate it into the goal setting mechanisms across these conventions.
Okay.
Karl, thank you very much indeed.
We're going to end with our final hoo quiz.
Very quickly, this is our final quiz before we end our session here.
The next fire is not going to wait for you.
If we could bring that up, please.
Are you at the ready? Okay.
First question, let me prime you.
Which region has experienced the largest burned area over the past two decades.
You've got your code there.
Let me just get the pin up.
907851 is your pin.
907851.
Let's just wait for everybody to join us in the waiting room.
Hello, did Dee.
Hey, we're Gaki.
ISIS, we have Ali, we have H, we have P.
Okay, let's go with those.
Which region? Oh, gosh, you just missed it.
Which region has experienced the largest burnt area over the last two decades? And Hold on.
That isn't the question I've got here.
What is the biggest barrier to scaling? Effective wildfire management? We're going to go with it.
Let's just go with it.
Please click your answers.
Okay.
And the answer is.
Okay, so we've got a lack of collaboration.
I mean, that's exactly what.
No surprise there, panel, is there? That's all we've been saying, collaboration.
Let's move on to the next question, please.
Which stakeholder is most often left out of wildfire decisions? I think we can guess.
Okay.
Get your answers in.
All right, Cop 18, we need indigenous people back on there on the agenda.
Okay, next question, please.
Which statement best reflects modern wildlife wildfire management? Which statement best reflects modern wildfire management? I'll read it to you.
Wildfires should be extinguished as quickly as possible.
That's red.
In orange, technology alone can prevent catastrophic wildfires.
Blue, wildfire resilience requires prevention, preparedness and partnerships.
And the answer is, everybody's gone for no green, more firefighting aircraft.
That's good.
The answer is wildfire resilience requires prevention, preparedness, and partnerships.
Brilliant.
Next question quickly, please.
Which action by citizens can have the greatest long term impact on reducing wildfire risk? As citizens, what is our responsibility here? Which action? Preventing human caused ignitions, reporting risks, clearing forests completely, green planting trees after fires, orange buying more firefighting equipment, and it's red 100%, all of you.
Yeah, citizen responsibility, Karl, what are your thoughts on that? Because we're here at a very high technical level.
How do you get that message out to the people living in the communities? What's your suggestion? My first reaction to the question is, you know, what do communities and citizens need to know and what can we here in the room bring to citizens and to communities, but really need to look at it in the other direction as well? What are we really listening? Are we are we really absorbing the knowledge, experience, Are you? From the citizens.
I think the answer is no.
Okay.
I think the answer is wait for it.
Not yet.
The answer is not yet.
Let me give a specific example, maybe a success example.
We worked very closely in Colombia with the National Firefighting Academy based in Kali and we have seen in our collaboration at CBD Cop 16, the last biodiversity Summit, we did some collaboration with the National Academy and They brought local community into the presentation, and it's critical.
Again, I think I said earlier, they're first responders, they're the most knowledgeable.
So this is an example where the firefighting professionals, the response professionals are reaching out to equip, give support, et cetera, but also really looking to those community members to help with the resilience piece.
Obviously, we need to work on this issue long before we reach the point of ignition.
Minnie, I'm assuming whether this question is even relevant to you because I imagine those within your community, this is part of their DNA, having the knowledge.
No, this is very relevant atle.
As I said, indigenous peoples are being taken away from their relationship.
So I think that one concrete action is really restoring the relationship of humans and the land.
Because we have lost that relationship, that we are doing all the destructive things indigenous peoples included, because the relationship has been severed or it is being threatened.
So one action really is to recover restore the relationship of human beings and the land.
Okay, Sang, I'm just going to carry on very quickly with the ko quiz.
We'll get to the end, and then I'm going to ask you for your final reflection because this is your baby.
Wildfires are your passion.
So you're going to close our session for us.
So let's just complete the quiz, and then I'm going to come back to you to close the session.
All right, so we've got two more, which is often the first to detect a wildfire? Who is often the first to detect a wildfire? Okay.
And then local communities and land users.
And our final question if we could just move on to that one.
What is the most important role every citizen can play in wildfire resilience? What is the most important role every citizen can play in wildfire resilience? Fight fires donate money.
Prevent prepare report, leave wildfire management to governments.
And that is prevent, prepare, and report.
And Santiago, I imagine You know, after everything we've discussed, you want the message to go forward.
So whilst we've got 100% here saying prevent, prepare, report, what is the message you would like carried out of the action dome today? I would like to going back to the mini reflection.
We need to work and make this connection between fires and communities.
Fires is a natural element that has been present in our lives since many centuries ago when human is human, we had used fires in different parts of the as a tool, as an element, part of our cultural value as a natural element.
So we don't need to be afraid about a fire.
We need to recompense this connection and be prepared about the new challenge that elements like climate change is already producing, that the risk of fire events take place is increasing and we need to be prepared but reconnected again.
No, there is a good fight and bad fire, and we need to be aware about that.
Okay.
I want to say thank you very much to my panelists.
If I still have my first three panelists in the room with me, could I have you all back onstage, please? We are going to have a family photo As had to dash off for the next event, but that's okay.
Very busy lady in the G 20.
Let's get together.
Let's come closer and we'll get our photo.
Well, Gaki, could you come in, please, because you're part of the G 20.
There we go.
Wonderful.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us on Saturday morning at lunch slash lunchtime.
It's time for lunch, don't you think Karl.
Wonderful.
Thank you very much and to all my panels.
Thank you.
Really, it was.
I love the stories.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, amazing work you're doing.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing the stories.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes.
She was excelled.
She was excellent.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.