The Wildfire-Resilient Landscapes Network, a joint initiative between the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance and the Commonwealth Secretariat, was launched at a reception attended by His Majesty King Charles III, on 30 November ahead of the start of COP28, in Dubai.
The network brings together indigenous and scientific knowledge to develop Living Labs that demonstrate how to create resilient landscapes to deal with the increasing problem of wildfires in fire-prone areas of the world. The initiative works with the finance industry to develop innovative financial tools (for example around emerging Nature markets) that can generate the necessary investments to support the transition to resilient landscapes.
The founding of the network was inspired by The King’s interest in linking Australia’s indigenous fire experts with Canadian experts to share best practices following Canada’s horrific fire season.
Climate change is resulting in unprecedented wildfires, as fire suppression has reached its limits. The world is witnessing escalating human casualties and serious health impacts, as well as huge economic losses, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and catastrophic loss of the natural world. This summer we witnessed extreme wildfire events, with Canada now experiencing its most severe wildfire season on record.
More than 18.5 million hectares of land has been burned (as of 2nd October) and this has resulted in emissions of more than 2.2 billion tons of CO2 eq, likely tripling the annual greenhouse emissions of Canada’s entire economy.
Innovative financial tools are also needed to play a catalytic role. Currently, the costs related to wildfire prevention and landscape management comes from public subsidies, which is insufficient to deal with the scale of the problem faced globally.
Private-public partnerships and private finance are crucial for deploying investments at scale to harness new technologies and create a new model for designing resistant and resilient landscapes. In this context, carbon and possibly also the future biodiversity markets provide an interesting opportunity for private finance.
The savanna fire management programme across northern Australia is a good example of how indigenous knowledge can be the basis for new financial tools that generate income for Indigenous Communities, while supporting resilient landscapes through carbon markets.
The network will build upon the work of the International Savanna Fire Management Initiative, which has developed leading technologies based on traditional fire management (TFM) approaches deployed in the management of land for generations, while generating carbon credits.
The application of TFM has delivered substantial additional benefits including creating market-based jobs in remote and vulnerable communities, and improving biodiversity, food security and health.
The new Network will be established under the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance together with the Commonwealth Secretariat. It will be coordinated through partnerships with the ISFMI, which will contribute unique indigenous knowledge and experience in wildfire risk management, and FIRE-RES, who will bring their scientific knowledge to bear.
The Commonwealth - Wildfire-Resilient Landscapes Network launched ahead of COP28