SAVING THE FOREST FROM BUSHFIRE

Over the past decade, there has been a surge in the incidence of large and uncontrolled fires on all vegetated continents, irrespective of national capacities in firefighting or fire-management strategies. In the Bamenda highlands among others, the Kilum-Ijim montane Forest located in the North West Region of Cameroon have faced severe wildfire. This wildfire disaster in the forest mostly occur in the month of February, and beginning of March when the rainy season is approaching. The montane forest is rich in tree plants like Pronus Africana, Schefflera mani and Schefflera Abysinica which are all bee loving trees, medicinal plants, edible mushroom and spices. The forest is also the largest reserve habitat of Bannarmans turaco bird that is classified of becoming an endangered specie only found in the Bamenda highland Region of Cameroon. Despite these ecological richness of the forest, wildfire have been a major thread to this montane forest which destroy all biomes and other basic necessities to mankind.

Notwithstanding the most obvious impacts, investments and actions to mitigate the risk and impacts of wildfires have not been sufficient to meet this growing threat. The outbreak of COVID-19 crisis exacerbated the situation, as resources for forests and fire management were diverted to other needs, and forest patrol and enforcement activities were restricted. This gave room to an increase in illegal burning to clear forests for agricultural and pastoral uses and may have contributed to the rise of fire incidents.

In many areas of Bamenda, fire continues to be a cost-effective and practical method used to clear land for agriculture and pastures.  At the economic level, indirect economic costs of wildfires reduces income from tourism, bee farmer, health expenditures, and the costs of post-fire rehabilitation of ecosystems and residential areas.

Socio-culturally, the impacts of wildfires have long-term socio-cultural lost for example the loss of Banamans turaco bird with characteristics red colored feather used in handing traditional tittles to important persons  in some chiefdoms in the North West region of Cameroon.

Health benefiting products like food from the forest will lead to poor nutritional health of people. The most widespread health issue caused by fires is respiratory illnesses along with increased eye irritation and corneal abrasions, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and insomnia are other serious health problems caused by wildfires.

Greenhouse gas caused by fire can lead to acid rain that can destroys crops, lead to death some aquatic life. Air pollution can also spread far beyond the original site of the fire, and affect other regions. Contamination of drinking water in affected watersheds from ash runoff also affects the health of local communities. These social and health impacts often last much longer than the fire and significantly increase the adverse consequences and costs of fires.

The devastating impact of wildfires on people’s lives and ecosystems along with the growing frequency and intensity of these fires requires concrete action at all level. Wildfires management strategies should be adopted in a comprehensive manner and not forgetting all aspects related to sustainable and integrated risk mitigation and prevention, fire suppression and post-disaster recovery plans.

Greater use of modern technologies in monitoring, detecting and controlling fires, such as through remote sensing and real-time alarming system, can help in this regard. Land use, forests and fire management should be based on sound scientific data.

Similarly, the traditional knowledge, experiences and practices of local communities and indigenous peoples like that of land tracing should also be adopted as a beneficiary to enhance the efficiency of wildfire management strategies.

More also, involving people, stakeholders in the development and implementation of sustainable land use, raising awareness through the various communication tools and taking action at the National and International level through sufficient funding of forest rescue teams, investment and budgeting to support the implementation of these strategies will help curb the risks and potential adverse impacts to the forest.