Wildfires are a major driver of change in land use patterns
Jeffrey Gogo Climate Story
CONFLICTING data on wildfires in Zimbabwe will have key implications for bio-diversity conservation now and in the future, and potentially undercut effective action that minimises the impact of uncontrolled fires on local climates.
Figures on land cover decimated by fire are vastly divergent, never linear.
Although official data shows veld fires burnt down 1,5 million hectares of forest and grasslands in 2015, down 10 percent from a year earlier, independent estimates are more damning.
Some 3,2 million hectares of land cover were destroyed during the first nine months of 2015 alone, they contend.
Wildfires are a major driver of change in land use patterns, altering the forest cover, plant and animal composition, as well as weaken the country’s capabilities to function effectively as a storer of carbon. With 45 percent of the total land area under forests, and accounting for just 0,05 percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions total, Zimbabwe is considered a net carbon sink, according to the Environment, Water and Climate Ministry.
Now, questions are beginning to emerge over the accuracy, and therefore reliability, of the official data on wild fires published every now and then, especially during the so-called fire season (July to October) by environment regulator, the Environment Management Agency (EMA).
“Who authenticates this data?” queried Mr Wilson Chimwedzi, director FireFight Trust, a local NGO that tracks wildfire outbreaks.
“EMA cannot generate (compile) data and then authenticate it (own their own). There is need for third party confirmation, say from a local university like Bindura University of Science Education which has programmes on fire.”
The existing EMA criteria on fire data collection was vague and should be clarified and agreed upon by and with input from various public, private, civic and academic parties, he said.
Mr Chimwedzi said there was a general uneasy consistency in the official annual fire statistics, which gravitate towards 1,5 or 1,6 million (hectares burnt).
“But fire is not static, the area burnt today is not the same as the one burnt tomorrow,” he argued.
According to data from FireFight Trust, which tracks fires using a satellite imaging system called Advanced Fire Information Systems (AFIS), there were more than 24 500 uncontrolled and controlled fire outbreaks throughout 2015.
EMA, which also uses the same system but an older version of it, put that figure at 2 464. “I cannot understand, we use the same system, but why is it that the Environmental Management Agency produces different results?” Mr Chimwedzi quipped
Figures from FireFight Trust show that more than 1 000 fires burned in Hurungwe in September alone, the highest by any other district across Zimbabwe. In total, more fires were started in Hurungwe’s Mashonaland West — 8 500 — than in any of Zimbabwe’s other nine provinces last year.
In Matabeleland North, a haven for natural woodlands, hardwood timber, more than 3 300 fires burned, and over 3 500 in the key farming region of Mashonaland Central, FireFight Trust says.
AFIS, also being used by the Forestry Commission and the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, has the ability to predict, detect and monitor wildfires in real time — well, almost real time — using the Earth observation satellite and weather forecast models, its makers, the Meraka Institute of South Africa, says. AFIS is authenticated by a US university.
Such systems typically pick up any manner of radiation on the earth’s surface, which is then transmitted via satellite to computers that monitor the fire patterns, as well as determine the size of land affected. But they also pick up radiation from thermal power plants like Hwange that are always burning, which tends to widen the margin of error in the accuracy of its results.
“Our burnt area statistics do not discount for such things as controlled burning, or other static fire areas like the Chiredzi sugarcane plantations and Hwange,” Mr Chimwedzi admitted.
However, even then, EMA data remained fundamentally weak and unreliable, he charged. And that’s because in a year of 12 months, the regulator restricts itself to collecting and publishing figures covering only a three-month period (July 31 to October 31), the time at which anyone is allowed to start a fire outside their homes legally. Where fires are spreading beyond the so-called fire season, “this is EMA’s biggest short-coming,” said Mr Chimwedzi.
Force for good
Dismissing the concerns, EMA spokesperson Steady Kangata said fires were also a force for good.
He emphasised the disparity in the data was a result of the difference in the time-scales for which the statistics were gathered, adding people will never be stopped completely from responsible burning.
“Outside the fire season, people can still use fire but in a controlled manner, there won’t be much fuel then, the grass will be minimal. We call it cool burning,” said Mr Kangata Thursday, by telephone.
“Fire can be used for very beneficial purposes like pasture management and bush encroachment control. We can’t be collecting data just for the sake of it. If we do that, then we have taken it from a wrong context.”
Contrary to Mr Chimwedzi’s assertions, the data from EMA is validated by the local meteorological office and corroborated by the regulator’s field agents, Mr Kangata said.
The size of land cover burnt by wildfires has more than tripled to a peak of 1,7 million hectares in 2014 from just 400 000 hectares in 2001, figures from EMA show. This may be a direct result from the increase in the number of smallholder farmers that received land under Zimbabwe’s land reforms that escalated beginning 2000.
Authorities say over 300 000 families have been resettled from ever since, mostly on virgin farm lands.
So, why should anyone be concerned over the asymmetry in fire data, really?
Accurate data is key not only for analysing historical fire patterns, but also in planning for the future based on historical data.
Such information can help policymakers make key decisions that shape the flow of finances into actions that prevent and halve the damage caused by wildfires on communities, bio-diversity and on climates. Based on the FireFight Trust’s figures, wildfires may have generated the equivalent of 90 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2015, making fire one of the biggest source of emissions within agriculture, according to estimates by The Herald Business.
Carbon dioxide is biggest driver of climate change and global warming.
“Wrong statistics generate a serious weakness in response. It makes sense to know the actual extent of damage caused by wildfires in order to draw attention to the seriousness of the issue from both Government and private funders,” said Mr Chimwedzi.
God is faithful.