Panel Discussion: Firing Up for Climate - Traditional Fire Management Tackling Climate Change

The panel will be a side event at this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris and will explore the opportunities for indigenous people to draw on traditional knowledge to respond to climate change through traditional fire management.

Due to colonisation, many landscapes have suppressed traditional fire management and as a result are poorly managed and degraded. In Australia, savanna burning projects use traditional knowledge and modern scientific practices to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere from unmanaged, potentially dangerous late-season wildfires. There is now an opportunity to apply this practice in other countries around the world and this event will provide space for discussions and networking among actors with an interest in the issue.