6.1.4 Fire Management in Mexico

By
Oscar Cedeño
SEMARNAP,
Mexico City, Mexico

Fire environment, fire regimes and ecological role of fire

Mexico has a total area of 1,967,183 km2 and a forest area of 141.7 million hectares, of which 56.8 million hectares are temperate forests and tropical forests and 58.4 million hectares are zones with arid and semiarid vegetation.

The forest fire season normally occurs between January and July. March and April are the major fire months because they coincide with the dry season. Human activities cause 97 percent of the wildfires, with agricultural and cattle activities causing 54 percent of the fires. In tropical zones, the main cause of fires is the practice of slash and burn agricultural practices. Burns to improve grass conditions for cattle are the main cause in temperate forests. Ninety-five percent of the fires burn on the surface, affecting mainly herbs, shrubs, and grasses.

The average number of wildfires for the 1990-1999 period was 7,767. These fires affected a total surface area of 251,697 hectares (a national average of 32 hectares per fire).

Fire regimes can be described in terms of how severe they burn and how much they change the vegetation that burned. Fire regimes can be classified in the following terms:

1. Understorey fire (applies to forests and woodlands)--fires are generally non-lethal to the dominant vegetation and do not substantially change the structure of the dominant vegetation. Examples include: pine communities and pine-oak communities.

2. Stand replacement fire (applies to forests, woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands)--fires kill aboveground parts of the dominant vegetation, changing the aboveground structure substantially. Approximately 80 percent or more of the aboveground dominant vegetation is either consumed or dies as a result of fires.

3. Mixed severity fire (applies to forests and woodlands)--severity of fire either causes selective mortality in dominant vegetation, depending on different tree species' susceptibility to fire, or varies between understorey and stand replacement.

4. Non-fire regime--little or no occurrence of natural fire. Examples include montane rainforest and tropical rainforest.

A forest fire is considered to be any fire which affects forest vegetation by natural or human causes, and occurs and spreads in an uncontrolled manner.

Narrative summary of major wildfire impacts on people, property, and natural resources that occurred historically.

• The average number of fatalities due to wildfires is 2 persons per year.

• Forest fires mainly cause mortality to natural regeneration in temperate forest zones, causing economic loss from the affected trees.

• In tropical areas wildfires enhance the growth and spread of a fern (Pteridium sp.) that contributes to rapidly spreading and difficult to control wildfires (Figure 6-6). In tropical forests wildfires affect biodiversity, wildlife, and the ecology in general. However, people also deforest tropical areas as they look for agricultural alternatives.

Figure 6-6 A forest fire in Lagunas de Montebello National Park in 1998 resulted in the widespread establishment of bracken fern.

Narrative summary of major wildfire impacts on people, property and natural resources during 1990s.

• During the 1990s, Mexico had a drought of seven consecutive years (1994-2000). In 1998, “El Niño” caused one of the most severe droughts, creating the most difficult wildfire season in Mexico’s history. Mexico had 14,445 wildfires affecting 849,632 hectares--the largest area ever burned in Mexico in a single season.

• Because of the large fires that occurred in 1998, 72 people died during fire control activities.

• In order to control the widespread wildfires it was necessary to gain support from the military, (SEDENA), State Governments, many federal agencies, and volunteers. Mexico also received valuable support from the United States Government in terms of equipment, technical support, and financial resources.

• In 1998,18 helicopters of different types and an airtanker were used; and 17,000 firefighters were transported. The helicopters dropped 15.1 million liters of water and foam on the fires.

• Due to the large area burned by wildfires in 1998, actions were taken for reforestation, soil and water conservation, and natural regeneration. Eighty-five areas were selected in 21 States to restore 188,288 hectares through reforestation.

Fire management organization used in Mexico

Fire prevention and control are a Federal responsibility and take place through the Secretary of Environment, Natural Resources, and Fisheries (SEMARNAP). SEMARNAP has 32 state delegations distributed throughout the country with personnel, crews, equipment, and infrastructures.

SEMARNAP has about 2000 firefighters, more than 200 vehicles, about 800 radios, and the tools and equipment necessary for fire control. Thirteen Type II helicopters are rented each year on the average. To control forest fires SEMARNAP receives the support from the military, other federal agencies, state governments, and volunteers.

National programmes of wildfire prevention, detection, and control are prepared each year. These programmes establish different actions, with emphasis on risk areas and critical zones.

Fire prevention programmes are designed to inform people about being careful with fire. Television, radio, posters, booklets, flyers, and press conferences are used to communicate fire prevention messages to the public.

Firebreaks and prescribed burns are used to help limit the spread of fire and reduce the fuel hazard.

Watch towers, ground detection, commercial aircraft reports about forest fires, aerial detection, and satellite detection are all valuable resources used in the detection of fires.

Canada provides support with maps about fire danger indexes based on the assessment of vegetation, temperature, humidity, etc. The danger rating system permits the prediction of fire risk and fire behavior.

Wildfire Database

Table 6-2 Number of fires and area burned, 1990-1999.

Year	Total No. of Fires on Forest, Other wooded land, and other land No.	Total Area Burned on Forest, Other wooded land, and other land ha	Area of Forest Burned ha	Area of Other wooded land burned ha	Human causes %	Natural causes %	Unknown causes %
1990	3443	80400	23316	57084
1991	8621	269266	113092	156174
1992	2829	44401	12432	31969	93	5	2
1993	10251	235020	54055	180965	93	5	2
1994	7830	141502	32545	108957	89	4	7
1995	7860	309087	114362	194725	95	3	2
1996	9256	248765	57216	191594	95	3	2
1997	5163	107845	23726	84119	94	3	3
1998	14445	849632	195415	654217	97	2	1
1999	7979	231061	41591	189470	96	2	2
AVERAGE	7767	251697	66775	184927	94	3	3

The database is managed by computer and paper records.

Average annual fire size: 32 ha per fire.

Use of prescribed fire to achieve resource management objectives.

The use of prescribed burns and control lines (firebreaks) were intensified in the 1990s, mainly through training courses, to reduce the presence of risky fires. More than 59,000 hectares of prescribed burns and 10,500 kilometers of control lines were completed annually on the average. These practices have been carried out in forests where people burn grasses for cattle and in places where there are large accumulations of fuels

Public policies affecting wildfire impacts.

Because the major wildfire causes are agricultural and cattle activities, SEMARNAP and SAGAR (Secretary of Agriculture, Cattle, and Rural Development) published a “Fire Standard”, which recognizes that people are using fire in agricultural and cattle practices; and provides norms for its proper use (Figure 6-7). One of the most important issues in this standard states that farmers must build control lines when they use fire for their activities.

Figure 6-7 In 1998, many agricultural fires were free-burning, often escaping into adjacent forests.

Another important policy is the promotion of programmes of economic incentives and agricultural alternatives to motivate people to avoid the use of fire as a tool. These actions are accomplished with the execution of the programme named “Productive re-conversion”.

Also, television and radio spots are used to induce people to avoid the use of fire and to report detected wildfires to the toll free telephone lines.

Sustainable land use practices used in Mexico to reduce wildfire hazards and wildfire risks. Commercial exploitation of natural forests in Mexico is carried out with a “Management Programme”. This programme contains the necessary information and issues to practice sustainable forest management. Usually these forests have a low occurrence of forest fires because the owners get economic income from forests.

In forests with cattle activities the “veza de invierno” programme is implemented. Vicia villosa is a leguminous plant used to feed the cattle and reduces the need to use fire within these zones.

In tropical forests, different alternatives with economic support from government take place (the “Agricultural Sedentarisation” and “Enhancing plantations on second growth tropical forests” are two examples).

In another tropical zone, different practices are used like perennial cultivation and agro-forestry systems to keep land in constant production and diminish the need to practice slash and burn agriculture.

In 1999 the Federal Government executed the programme named “Temporary Employment Programme”. This programme basically consists in making new job opportunities by building control lines in low-income non-productive forest zones. This programme has diminished the presence of wildfires in the zones where it has been implemented.

Community involvement in fire management activities.

Since the extraordinary presence of fires in 1998, people have been made aware of the risks that wildfires represent and the damage they do to wildlife, vegetation, and the environment (Figure 6-8).

Figure 6-8 SEMARNAP officers conducting a public fire prevention meeting with people from Zinacantan (Los Altos de Chiapas) in 1998.

Note the hazy atmosphere from nearby fires.

Today nine different federal agencies, state governments, and municipalities work together with SEMARNAP on wildfire prevention and control.

Common people and land proprietors have an important role to play in the protection of Mexico's forests from wildfire. The media also has an important educational role to play in transferring information to various audiences.

During the fire season, a widespread awareness programme is implemented using television, radio, and printed material. People report detected wildfires to the Wildfire Prevention and Control National Center.

6.1.4.1 Forest Fire Situation in the State of Chiapas, Mexico5

By
Rosa Maria Román Cuesta
Barcelona, Spain

Fire Environment, fire regimes, and ecological role of fire in Chiapas

Chiapas is a southeastern Mexican state with a land area of 75.634 Km² (4 percent of the national territory, 8^th biggest state in Mexico (INEGI, 1997)) (Figure 6-9). Sixty-eight percent of the State is forested. Sixty-four percent of the forested area is covered by woods (22 percent) or jungle (42 percent) (SARH 1994). Chiapas is divided into 111 adminitrative units. During the period 1993-1999, 75 (68 percent) of them suffered from at least one forest fire (> 0.5 ha), and 20 of them (18 percent) suffered from “large forest fires” = 500 ha.

About 4.1 million hectares of forested land are subjected to forest fires (83 percent)⁶.

A “forest fire” is defined by State law for fire prevention, fighting and control, in the State of Chiapas (POE, 1999), as: “A harmful event caused intentionally or fortuitously by fire, which occurs in areas covered by vegetation, trees, grasslands, scrubs, brushwoods and, in general, in every different plant association”.

Forest fire regimes common to Chiapas can be summarized as follow:

• Understorey fire (applies to forests and woodlands)--fires are generally non-lethal to the dominant vegetation and do not substantially change the structure of the dominant vegetation. This situation would be the case for pine communities (and its mixed communities: pine-oak; pine-oak-liquidambar) and oak communities. Fire does not always benefit genus Pinus, especially its most mesophyll species (in Chiapas’ case: Pinus ayacahuite and P. pseudostrobus). Fire can be harmful for the establisment and the permanence of many pinewoods that, even if they are not destroyed, are prone to have regeneration difficulties (Miranda 1952; Rzedowski and McVaugh 1966, in Rzedowski, 1978). Oaks are not pyric communities, especially in Chiapas, where they usually inhabit very humid places. This fire regime does not kill them, but it affects the quality of its habitat. Although it is not as frequent, when drought is a factor, there can be understorey fires in wetter communities such as tropical deciduous forests, evergreen seasonal forests, montane rain forest, lower montane rain forests, evergreen cloud forests, or even tropical rain forests (as in Breedlove, 1981)

• Stand replacement fire (applies to forests, woodlands, shrublands, and grasslands)--fires kill aboveground parts of the dominant vegetation, changing the aboveground structure substantially. Approximately 80 percent or more of the aboveground dominant vegetation is either consumed or dies as a result of fires: This fire regime is not frequent in tree communities in the State, but when it occurs it usually has catastrophic connotations. Stand replacement fires are associated with severe drought conditions (which might be caused by global climatic phenomena like El Niño). Under these conditions, not only flammable forest types can burn (pines or its mixed communities), but even potentially non-flammable types like Abies communities, tropical rain forests, and evergreen cloud forests. This was the case with the 1998 forest fires. Stand replacement fires in tropical communities represent future fire-hazard (if there is no land use change) during the following decades, as unburned fuels remain there and dry out. Secondary succession can be initiated by opportunistic very flammable species, like ferns, that greatly increase fire-hazard.

Figure 6-9 Geographic location and administrative division of Chiapas.

Mixed severity fire (applies to forests and woodlands)--severity of fire either causes selective mortality in dominant vegetation, depending on different tree species' susceptibility to fire, or varies between understorey and stand replacement. This regime can be typical for pine communities and their mixed variations (pine-oak; pine-oak-liquidambar). The result is a patchwork effect that rapidly turns green, but the habitat’s quality is diminished. Moreover, those opened gaps are frequently occupied by very flammable, opportunistic species like ferns, so fire-hazard is increased during the decades after fire.

Non-fire regime--little or no occurrence of natural fire: High humidity levels are responsible for this non-fire regime, under normal climatic conditions. In Chiapas this generally would be the case for Abies communities, rain forests, and evergreen cloud forests.

Forest fires regimes in Chiapas have an important human component that can be summarized as the combination of different causes (Vélez, 1990):

Structural causes (permanent social and ecological conditions that cause the fire problem):

• Climatic and topographic characteristics: Chiapas, as other tropical states in Mexico, has a natural seasonal variation in rainfall, which is divided into a rainy season (May to October) and a dry season (November till April). Dry seasons also are characterized by the highest temperatures. Forest fires in Chiapas follow, more or less, this rainy scheme and they are concentrated in a part of the dry period (from January to May, or June, when there are special conditions of drought, affected by global climatic phenomena like ENSO). So it seems there’s a tendency to extend the fire season to the first months of the rainy season, either because rain comes later, or because accumulated drought stress requires some time to recover. There are no recorded forest fires outside of these months. This implies a concentration of resources (human and material) in a specific part of the year. On the other hand, the complex topography of the state makes it difficult to attack fire, and steep topography makes fires spread faster (Deeming et al 1977; Rothermel 1984).

• Fire is habitually used as a traditional tool. Fire and agricultural/farming activities have always been very common in this region.⁷

• A socio-economic framework that does not help conservation measures. Sixty percent of the population are rural inhabitants (INEGI 1997). There is high demographic pressure and the cattle sector is evolving.

• Existence of natural resources potentially transformable into agricultural fields. This creates a migration of farmers from high demographic pressure regions to lower demographic pressure regions; as well as migration from neighboring states with a lower amount of potential lands for agricultural.

• Inefficient fire and land use change legal measures. (See section on Public Policies Affecting Wildfire Impacts).

Immediate causes: they refer to human activities that provoke forest fires, in a direct or indirect way.

• 52 percent of the fires are due to negligence (agriculture or farming activities), while 29 percent are related to arson. Over 17 percent of the fires are from unknown causes.

In terms of affected area:

• Pine-oak communities represent 74 percent of the fires, and 61 percent of the total area burned in the state. Fifty-four percent of the total area affecting pine-oak communities was due to surface fires, 7percent was affected by crown fires, and the rest were ground fires. Most common pines in the State are (Miranda, 1975): Pinus oocarpa, P. pseudostrobus, P.montezumae, P. teocote, and P.tenuifolia (these live between 750-3000 meters and are the ones to suffer more frequent fires). P.hartwegii and P. rudis occur between 2800-4000 meters and don’t frequently suffer from fires due to the cold, wet conditions.

• Tropical rain forest and montane rain forest represented 7 percent of the fires, and 18 percent of the total burned area in the State. Fifty-five percent of its total burned area was due to fires that affected crowns. Twenty-seven percent of its total burned area was due to ground fires and 16 percent was related to surface fires.

• Evergreen cloud forests represented 0.3 percent of the fires; and less than 1 percent of the total burned area in the State. Ninety-nine percent of the total area burned in the cloud forest was due to surface fires.

In general terms, forest fires in Chiapas are mainly surface fires (80 percent of the fires and 51 percent of the total burned area) (Román et al 2000)). High intensity crown fires that severely affect the forests occur mainly in years of extreme drought, like 1997-1998, or 1986-1987.

Narrative summary of major wildfire impacts on people, property, and natural resources during the 1990s

Forest fires in Chiapas do represent a problem in the State (Valera, 1994). In 1987, Chiapas was considered, together with Madagascar, one of the hottest points in the world (State Government, 1992, in Villafuerte et al, 1997). If we use standarized indexes that represent fire frequency and area affected by fires in Chiapas⁸, compared with those indexes for the whole Republic, we’ll see that fire frequency in Chiapas used to have much higher levels during the 1980s. But during this last decade it has decreased until it is lower than the national level. However, the area index has always been much higher in Chiapas than in the rest of Mexico. It was 20 times higher in 1986 and 8 times higher in 1998. Mean burned area in Chiapas is more than 10 times the national level.

During 1993-1999, there were 1362 forest fires in Chiapas, affecting an area of 327,534 ha (SEMARNAP 1999)⁹. This represents 6 percent of Chiapas’ forested land. Twenty-six percent of that area included trees with different severities of burning. Forty-six percent of the area affected herbaceous layers. The mean area of each fire during these 7 years was 210 ha.

The importance of forest fires in this southern State refers to the value of its vegetation. Mexico ranks third in the world in terms of megadiversity (Mittermeier 1988; Toledo and Eccardi 1989; Mittermeier and Mittermeier 1992, in Challenger, 1998) ¹⁰. Among the States, Chiapas has, together with Oaxaca, the most diverse flora of the Republic (Miranda 1975). It presents 8,248 flora species, 80 percent of the tropical tree species, 33 percent of the reptiles (with important endemisms), 33 percent of the amphibians, and 80 percent of the known butterflies in the Mexican tropical rain forests (State Government 1992).

Although forest fires mostly affect non-arboreal layers (74 percent of the total burned area during 1993-1999), 79,011 ha of arboreal communities were affected by several classes of intensity. Fifty-eight percent of the total arboreal layer affected by fires during these 7 years was due to 1998’s forest fires (Román et al 2000):

• Surface fires were responsible for 50 percent of the arboreal layer affected. This type of fire (that reaches the lower part of the crown at some points) doesn't necessarily kill the tree. But the trees can be weakened and become more vulnerable to pests. For example, Dendroctonus frontalis pests, in the National Park of Las Lagunas de Montebello, were enhanced by forest fires that happened there in 1997 and 1998. On the other hand, surface fires can severely affect trees that have not evolved in a fire environment (evergreen cloud forests, or tropical rain forests in their several categories).

• The other 50 percent of the fires affecting the arboreal layer were crown fires, which were especially important in the years 1997 and 1998. In 1998, the drought conditions were severe due to El Niño. During this period, crown fires affected pine-oak communities, as well as potentially non-flammable communities like tropical rain forest, montane or lower montane rain forest, and evergreen cloud forests (as in Breedlove, 1981). Taking into account the State area occupied by these communities, pine-oak burned the most (3 percent of the State pine-oak communities, or 176,548 ha); tropical rain forest and montane/lower montane rain forest occupied the second position (1.5 percent of the State area, or 53,005 ha); and the evergreen cloud forests represented the smallest area affected (0.05 percent of the State area affected, or 2384 ha). Of special interest are two tropical rain forest areas that burned in the 1998 fires: Los Chimalapas and The Biosphere Reserve of El Ocote (corridor of Chimalapas, Ishiki, pers.communication, 1999).

Chimalapas fires case example (García M.A., 1999): La Selva de los Chimalapas is 600,000 hectares located in the Tehuantepec isthmus. Part of its area is placed in Oaxaca and part in Chiapas. Its northern edge is bounded by Uxpanapa and Veracruz and its western boundary contacts the transisthmic road (carretera transístmica). In 1996, almost 80 percent of its area was in excellent conservation condition, consisting of 9 natural ecosystems (as in Breedlove, 1981) (tropical rain forests, montane rain forests, evergreen seasonal forests, evergreen cloud forests, temperate forests (pine-oak), and even Abies formations (oyameles). This biological diversity has given Chimalapas an exceptional ecological value. Moreover, this tropical formation, together with la Selva Lacandona and La Selva del Ocote, represent the northern location of this type of tropical community, which makes them even more valuable. These areas are found in the confluence of different biogeographical regions, which increases the number of endemisms.

Chimalapas, as is true of the rest of the tropical rain forests in Chiapas, suffers from several pressures: 1) agrarian conflicts and cattle invasion, 2) increase of the cattle area, 3) State legal border conflicts, 4) increase of narco-traffic settlements, and 5) new population settlements (high immigration rates and demographic pressure concentrated at some points). These pressures at areas of higher fire risk (associated with the higher flammability of temperate forest fuels) are the reason for several smaller forest fires at the eastern side.

Fires in Chimalapas started between the 4^th and 6^th of May in 1998 and burned for 45 days. These fires were characterized by surface, crown, and ground types of fires (SEMARNAP 1999). During the first 3 days there were 17 fire fronts in a horizontal line of 100 km, almost at the same latitude, affecting the heart of the tropical rain forest and the evergreen cloud forests. This is a very inaccesible location, where there are no villages, nor agrarian or cattle activities. The extreme drought associated with the El Niño event of 1997-1998 helped establish the conditions for these fires to spread. On the 7^th of June when rain started, there had been 68 forest fires in the area; 17 of them in the heart of the jungle. Only 9 of the fires could be fought. The rest were inaccesible due to topographic reasons and were obscured by smoke. Four hundred farmers helped fight the fires initially, and the number grew to 1000 civil persons later. National and international help also assisted with the firefighting. Finally, the burned area was considered to be more than 100,000 ha, although SEMARNAP reports refer to 25,000 ha.

The SEMARNAP fire field register indicates that the fires burned 15,600 ha in the arboreal layers, 1400 ha in the shrub layers, and 5000 ha in the herbaceous communities (Román et al 2000). After the fires, land use changes and new population settlements of “unlanded people” have put obstacles in the way of restoration processes (Ishiki, pers. Communication, 1999).

The fires of 1998 created a high “environmental”concern for the Chiapas population and its authorities due to several reasons:

• Smoke produced by the fires covered the sky for almost one month (spreading to several areas of southern USA). Visibility was reduced, the environment was very warm, and combustion particles were responsible for severe breathing diseases in the whole State.

• Several airports had to close their facilities as visibility didn’t allow the landing of planes.

• Newspapers and radios were constantly communicating the occurrence of new fires in the State. So the chaotic use of fire and its consequences were more apparent during that year.

• Potentially non-flammable communities were affected by fire, so the conviction of “ecological disaster” was a constant.

• Severe drought occurred during the end of 1997 and the first 6 months of 1998, not only in forested areas, but also in agriculture lands. Farmers were concerned about lowered production.

• Chiapas is a State with important tourism due to its Mayan archeological sites and its natural resources. Fires that affect national parks and other tourism attractions can produce negative consequences on that sector's income.

The cause of fires is mainly associated (according to SEMARNAP’s fire field registers) with negligence arising from agrarian and farming activities. These two activites are responsible for 46 percent¹¹ of the fires and 66.2 percent of the total area affected by fires (Román et al 2000). However, it is difficult to determine where negligence ends and intentional fires start. In Central America, burns are sometimes done with deliberate negligence, letting fires affect much higher areas than the areas that will be cultivated. The objective is to weaken woods in order to obtain forestry cut authorizations or land use changes. This is due to the fact that legislation allows cuts to improve forest health, but restricts commercial cuts, for which several studies have to be presented, as well as paying a fee (Vélez, 1986).

Public policies affecting wildfire impacts

There are several laws related to the problem of forest fires in the State. We can divide them into federal and State legislation:

• Federal:

- Forestry and hunting legislation. December of 1992, reformed in May of 1997.

- General law of ecological equilibrium and environmental conservation. January of 1988, reformed in December of 1996.

- Penal code

• State (there are 9 documents. Some of the most important are):

- Law for the prevention, fighting, and control of forest fires in the State of Chiapas. February of 1999.

- State law of ecological equilibrium and environmental protection. July of 1991. Reformed by the decree law number 26, in February of 1992.

- Decree law number 35: Declaration of municipalities in Chiapas with high fire risk. July of 1990.

- Cattle law for the state of Chiapas.

Main points of these laws can be summarized as follow:

Until 1999

• State legislation did not forbid burning for traditional agriculture and/or cattle activities (decree law number 26)

• State laws did regulate the use of fire, forcing the establishment of several precautionary measures, in order to prevent forest fires when fire was used for traditional activities:

Decree law number 35:

• Creation of security corridors around the area meant to burn: minimum sizes, periods of the year when these corridors must be done, etc.

• Correct location of fuels meant to be burned, as well as several measures referred to fire behaviour in the presence of steep slopes and wind.

• Obligation of notifying the intention to burn to the local authorities and neighbors.

• Number of persons that must take care of the burning process, as well as the prohibition of starting fires in neighboring field plots at the same time.

• Federal legislation did consider and restrict land use changes, without prohibiting them in those areas that fitted the requirements established by the law. (Forestry and hunting law).

• Federal legislation did force civil participation in fighting and extinguishing fires, with administrative and/or penal sanctions:

Forestry and hunting law (administrative sanctions):

• To whom, having the obligation, doesn’t prevent nor fight forest fires.

• To whom, by negligence, provokes forest fires.

• To those owners of burned areas who don’t notify to the authorities the presence of fire.

• To whom, without authorization, changes land uses in forested land.

• To whom intentionally provokes forest fires (administrative or penal sanction).

After 1999

Severity of forest fires in 1998 lead to the publication of the State law for the prevention, fighting, and control of forest fires in Chiapas, which:

• Forbids “slash and burn” activities in those municipalities considered at high risk in the decree law 35 (46 percent of the municipalities in Chiapas), but it does not forbid the use of fire in any areas if it is for agriculture and/or cattle activities. (There are contradictions in those measures).

• Includes new type of sanctions, in addition to administrative and penal sanctions:

• Authorities can decide to eliminate state “field support”, as federal support to any producer that does not take into account the legislation referred to forest fire prevention, fighting, and control.

• Includes several incentives (preference support, prizes, and federal financing) to those who demonstrate several measures of environmental protection, among them:

• Having avoided fire, traditional practices of “slash and burn”, or any other environmental impact.

• Having reduced environmental impacts (deforestation, rational water use...).

• Having promoted the culture of “no burning”.

• Having introduced sustainable measures in their agriculture and/or cattle activities.

• Creates actions destined to enhance the culture of “no burning” (educational measures).

• Increases the services related to fire prevention and fire warning.

There are several laws in Chiapas related to the problem of forest fires, but there are few measures to control their applicability. Moreover, measures proposed in some of this legislation depend on federal financing and there is the possibility this might not occur. On the other hand, fire has always been a traditional tool in Mayan culture and it fits into their natural and social conditions. Fire is not, “per se”, the problem, but it is the negligent use of fire together with a socio-economic framework that enhances environmental impacts. It’s impossible to control the use of fire in a State where approximately 60 percent of the inhabitants are rural population (INEGI, 1997). This is especially true if alternatives are not proposed or are not useful. In this sense, fire legislation is quite removed from social reality in the State of Chiapas.

Together with the legislation, there are other activities in the state established to create some environmental concern about forest fires:

• SEMARNAP's informational activitites like speeches and courses.

• Advertising related to prevention of forest fires (wall paintings, radio messages, institutional calls, etc.).

Referring to civil participation in the State, there is a very satisfactory response to firefighting and detection activities. During 1993-1999 civil participation provided, on the average, 65 percent of the total number of firefighters. In several years (1993, 1994), civil firefighters comprised three times the number of official staff (Román et al, 2000). So, although negligence by the civil sector is mainly responsible for starting forest fires in Chiapas, it’s also the civil sector that mainly fights the fires.

Wildfire Database

Table 6-3. Number of fires and area burned in Chiapa, between 1990-1999.

** This year includes 22,000 ha of Los Chimalapas forest fire, that should be divided into two parts, as this fire was located between Oaxaca and Chiapas.

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Villafuerte et al, 1997. La cuestión ganadera y la deforestación. Viejos y nuevos problemas en el trópico y en Chiapas. Universidad de ciencias y artes del estado de Chiapas & Gobierno del estado de Chiapas. pp.215.

⁵ This study was part of the SUCRE project, sponsored by the European Union, Com. XII

⁶ We have to remark that this value corresponds to the total forested area of the administrative units that had fires, but overweighted, as fires are recurrent in many places.

Fire results are based on SEMARNAP’s fire field registers.

Another consideration refers to the fact that, during these years (1993-1999), there has been an unusual succession of ENSO’s: 1991-1992; 1993; 1994; 1997-1998 (NOAA website 2000). The last one (1997-1998) had a global repercussion and also affected Chiapas’ fire dynamic, by leading to the occurrence of fires in jungle communities, so area available to fire is overwighted compared to “normal conditions”.

⁷ The relationship between fire and “slash and burn” activities is often confused in Chiapas. Slash and burn activities are agricultural systems which respect the natural cycles of vegetation in order to maintain productivity and land regeneration. The problem is that these systems require low demographic pressure (< 25 inhab/Km2), as well as extensive forest resources that can be left in fallow long enough to recover (Sanders & Price, 1968; Wolf, 1983; in Alemán.T, 1997). If not enough time is allowed for fallow in the agricultural fields, then slash and burn activities are being deprived of an important feature. There are very few places in the world, as well as in Mexico, were there are still the natural and socio-economic conditions that allow the preservation of slash and burn techniques. Instead we have what is known as “milpa que camina”, which is an irreversible, unidirectional, and rapid system for transforming woods into agricultural lands, with the exploitation of a few agricultural species (Alemán, 1997).

⁸ Fire frequency index= Number of fires/ [Forested area (ha)/10.000]

Fire area index=[Total area affected by fires (ha)/ Forested area (ha)]*100

⁹ SEMARNAP official data of fires during 1993-1999 were a bit higher than the data obtained with the fire field registers. (Published data were: 1362 forest fires and 327,534 affected hectares versus 1438 forest fires and 301,759 affected hectares reported in the fire field registers).

¹⁰ There are 7 Megadiverse countries in the world and they support (altogether) between 50 and 80 percent of the world's species diversity (Mittermeier 1988; The Economist 1988; en Challenger, 1998).

¹¹ Negligent acts are responsible of 52 percent of the fires. Negligent acts include several causes. The main ones are agriculture and farming activities, which represent 46 percent of the total fires. The other 6 percent is due to forestry activities, mountaineering, campsites, etc