Forest Policy and Economics 29 (2013) 1–6
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Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol
Guest editorial
Comparative assessment of wildland fire legislation and policies in the European Union: Towards a Fire Framework Directive☆ Cristina Montiel-Molina ⁎ Department of Regional Geography and Physical Geography, University Complutense of Madrid, Profesor Aranguren s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
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Available online 23 December 2012 Keywords: Fire use Integrated fire management Multilevel governance Wildfire
a b s t r a c t Wildfires are one of the main risks affecting European forests, particularly in Mediterranean countries. Socio-economic changes, certain forest management actions and other policy measures outside the forest sector have generally influenced the flammability of ecosystems and increased the risk of large wildfires. Policy and legislation have great relevance in fire management in order to face the new realities that are bringing about fundamental changes within the forest sector. This paper presents the assessment of the main strengths and weaknesses of the national and regional fire legislation and policy documents in Europe in order to consider their contributions to integrated fire management. The assessment is based on the information obtained through a questionnaire sent to the national representatives of the Expert Group on Forest Fires — a group linked to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), established by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission-, and national fire technicians, and also on other relevant databases with information about wildfires and national forest policies. The territorial scope covers the European Union including its 27 Member States. The scales considered for the policy analysis are the national level for centralised countries and the regional level for decentralised countries. As a result of the analysis of the existing wildfire legal framework and policy instruments, current opportunities, threats, challenges and demands regarding fire management in Europe have been identified. Furthermore, some common ecological and socio-economical patterns have been recognised at the regional level, which were used to provide recommendations to policy-makers and to set the basis for a new legislation and policy measures relative to integrated fire management, adapted to each territorial context. Finally, a Framework Directive is considered as the best legal instrument for promoting the concept of Integrated Fire Management in Europe. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Fire is a common natural and cultural element that has always been present in Europe, but with differing regional impacts. Wildfires are the most important disturbing factor in southern European countries, with an average of 500,000 ha of forests and other wooded land burnt every year (San-Miguel-Ayanz and Camia, 2009). Nevertheless, fire-related problems are not limited to the Mediterranean region (Schmuck et al., 2012). Wildfire risk is a major problem for all European territories and societies, particularly in the context of global change, which is originating new territorial scenarios for wildfire ignition and propagation.
☆ This article belongs to the Special Issue: Fire use policies and practices in Europe: Solving the Fire Paradox. ⁎ Tel.: +34 913945292; fax: +34 913945963. E-mail address:
[email protected]. 1389-9341/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2012.11.006
In general, the wildfire problem worsened in the second half of the 20th century, to a large extent because of the specific socio-economic changes arising in each particular context. Land-use change dynamics have aggravated fire hazards and disaster potential, especially in southern Europe, due to the abandonment of rural areas, the prolonged protection of forestlands from fire and the growth of extensive wildland-urban interface areas (Martínez, 2004; Vélez, 2002; Montiel and Herrero, 2010; Rego et al., 2010). The wildfire policies adopted by most European countries over the last century have been based on fire exclusion regardless of their specific context (Naveh, 1990; Agee and Skinner, 2005; FAO, 1999). Nowadays, this approach is widely recognised to be neither ecologically desirable nor economically feasible (Myers, 2006; Agee and Skinner, 2005). Currently, total fire exclusion has significant consequences on wildfire magnitude and frequency, through an increase of fuel accumulation, loss of resilience to fire and alteration of fire regimes. Efficient suppression actions have resulted in a reduction in total burned area
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per year in relatively easy fire seasons. Meanwhile, the potential for major disasters remains in these regions, with an increase in large fire events during difficult fire seasons (Xanthopoulos et al., 2006). Although fire suppression is deeply rooted in most countries, a national fire policy should consider all aspects of wildfire management as a whole and with a long-term view (Hesseln, 2006). Over the past fifteen years, catastrophic incidents have increased policy-makers' awareness. Wildland fires in Portugal in 2003 and the wave of forest fires that devastated Galicia in north-western Spain in the summer of 2006 are examples of how the processes to induce changes in wildfire policies or the adoption of political measures are often ad hoc reactions to a situation that has already evolved, rather than proactive mitigation before the emergency arises (FAO, 1999). At present, wildland fires constitute one of the major hazards affecting European forests, together with pollution, plagues and erosion (Vélez, 2002; San-Miguel-Ayanz and Camia, 2010). Furthermore, their consequences have broader implications, threatening human lives and property with disastrous impacts, particularly in the wildland-urban interfaces (Galiana-Martin et al., 2011). However, the effects of fire are not all negative. Mankind has always used fire as a tool in rural activities and, even today, it remains a widespread practice in many regions (Pyne, 1997; Montiel and Kraus, 2010). Understanding this fire paradox and its effects in European countries is essential for finding solutions for an integrated fire management. This concept requires considering the various aspects of fire, from its use as a planned management practice (prescribed fire) to the initiation and propagation of unplanned fires (wildfires) and also to the use of fire in fighting wildfires (suppression fire). Prescribed or suppression fires will therefore set the limits for wildfires by controlling their spatial extent, intensity and impacts (Sande Silva et al., 2010). The expanding multilevel polity has a strong impact on the public policies and legislative frameworks that contain the objectives and measures governing the conservation and protection of forests (Bauer et al., 2004). At the national level, a proactive policy based on comprehensive legislation and regulations and new policy instruments paves the way for the introduction of innovative approaches and new recommendations needed to start a shift towards the solution of the present wildfire problem (Abdullah, 2002). Wildfire issues are mainly considered in forest policy as threats affecting forests. Forest policy development is the responsibility of national states and regional governments (depending on the degree of decentralisation of the territory in question), and thus the renewal of legislation and policy instruments occurs at the national and regional levels. The objectives of this work are (i) to identify the key issues on wildfires addressed by legal regulations and planning documents in European countries, and analysing how forest policy and civil protection policy deal with wildfire risk at the national level; (ii) to assess the contribution of the policy instruments to meet the challenges of forest fire risk at different levels (national, sub-national and local); and (iii) to provide recommendations for long-term policy measures and to encourage a shift towards integrated fire management adaptable to regional specificities at different territorial levels, in agreement with the internationally-endorsed concept of sustainable development.
Negotiation vs. imposition depends not only on the political culture, institutional design and public/private arrangements of a particular country, but also on the type of policy under discussion. Yet forest policy is highly internationalised and this means that domestic factors affecting the policy will have to accommodate the United Nations (UN) mandate that establishes that interest groups must actively participate in forest management (i.e. sustainability entails a democratic and participatory programme). Stemming from the policy process, different policy outputs in the shape of legislation, plans, programmes and the like emerge. Each type of output is different in nature. Laws have a compulsory character that makes them enforceable by public agencies and the bureaucracy whereas plans and programmes ordinarily have a laxer character. Though it is true that public policy analysis often refers to laws as a type of policy instrument (command-and-control policy instrument as opposed to market-based, voluntary and educational instruments), we will restrict this term to more specific tools such as partnership agreements, green taxes, subsidies, information campaigns and the like. That is, we are dealing with a policy (forest policy) that is developed through different and specific political processes (in our case, this process has been strongly influenced by the international scenario: UN, pan-European and EU agendas) that can be divided into different stages: agenda-formation, policy-formulation/elaboration, policy legitimation, policy implementation, policy assessment and evaluation and policy change. The outputs of this process are laws, plans and programmes, all of them containing different justifications, definitions of the issue, state of the art, policy instruments and tools, deadlines, etc. that are designed to achieve the goals envisaged in the policy; that is the outputs should achieve certain outcomes. The policy identifies, through legislation and other political outputs, what is required in order to attain objectives (substance) and also how to attain them (procedure). Guidance embraces codes, guidelines, conducts of practice, and manuals, all of them leading to the specification and support of the content of plans. A fire management policy does not exist as such in Europe. The territorial approach to wildfire-related problems should pursue the incorporation of these issues into other public policies, rather than the formulation of a specific wildfire policy, in line with what the Cardiff process initiated in relationship with environmental policy (i.e. the environmental policy integration principle). In consequence wildland fires, and wildfire issues in particular, are mainly dealt with through forest policy. Forest policy entails a set of strategies, plans, legal dispositions, measures and actions formulated to support forestland planning and forest management. Such policy actions progress along well-defined action guidelines, as well as short and long-term targets (see Fig. 1). In the last decades of the 20th century, forest policies underwent profound changes in accordance with international commitments assumed by
2. Conceptual and theoretical basis Policy is the set of actions, undertaken by democratically elected public authorities in concert with officials, which are imposed on or negotiated with, target-groups. Regardless of whether imposed or negotiated, forest public policy, once approved, enjoys a compulsory character. If the policy is negotiated with target groups (consensual policies), this is likely to lead to less opposition and less veto players when it comes to its implementation. If the policy is not negotiated, this will likely encounter resistance and implementation deficit.
Fig. 1. Conceptual operating environment (by Peter F. Moore).
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the countries participating in the 1992 Rio Summit and 2002 Johannesburg Summit, together with the new socioeconomic and environmental demands set upon forestlands. Thus, current processes of forest policy reform are adopting the shape of National and Regional Forest Programmes (N/RFP). In fact, these Programmes are the main instrument to develop the forest policy in line with the international forums that derived from the Rio Summit, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) process and its proposals for action (Glück et al., 1999). Europe officially endorsed the UN's Forest Principles in 1990, following the Ministerial Conferences on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) process, which entails a set of Resolutions aiming to promote sustainable forest management in the European context. These Resolutions are implemented through the National Forest Programmes (NFP). Therefore, NFP are the framework where forest policy is formulated and implemented, by means of legislation and planning documents. Whether participation takes place at the national, sub-national or any other level depends on the existence of different systems of territorial distribution of power in different countries. Furthermore, a common forest policy does not exist in the EU. The existence of remarkable differences amongst the different Member States regarding their forest resources and policies makes it necessary to consider the specific situation of each country as far as wildland fires are concerned. One of the common goals in European, but especially in Mediterranean, N/RFP is the protection of woodlands from fires and other types of hazards. With this aim in mind, Forest Plans usually include preventive and curative actions to mitigate wildfire hazard. In tandem with the objective of wildland defence against fires, there is specific wildland fire legislation and policy instruments regarding the protection of human lives and goods in the European countries, at the national and regional levels, in the context of Civil Protection policies. Leaving forest policies aside, wildland fire management could be influenced by other public policies that potentially have an important direct or indirect effect on the issue. Thus, other sectors need to be taken into consideration when analysing relevant political instruments influencing wildfire hazard and fire behaviour: spatial planning, rural development and agricultural policies, energy, environmental or civil protection policies are some examples. Nonetheless, the analysis of these territorial policies 1 goes beyond the scope of this paper, which will only focus on forest policies and civil protection policies.
3. Material and methods Since wildland fire issues are mainly dealt with national forest and civil protection policies, the analysis of legislation and planning documents has mainly focused on the national scale, although the existence of different multilevel governance structures made it necessary to address the issue also on a sub-national level in decentralised countries. Thus, three types of regulatory texts are identified as relevant for the fire management: (i) basic forest legislation, (ii) basic wildland fire legislation and (iii) specific legislation on the use of fire. Concerning planning documents, the existing National/Regional Forest Programmes and specific plans on defence and protection against wildfires have been classified depending on (i) the different paces and evolving stages of the forest and civil protection policies and (ii) the responsibility allocation within each national governance structure (situation of decentralisation). The compilation of these documents was based on the information obtained from a questionnaire sent to the members of the 1 “Territorial Policy includes all development policies undertaken by public authorities — the central state as well as regional and local governments— with the aim of promoting a more efficient use of resources within specific geographical areas”. (OECD: Report on innovation and effectiveness in territorial development policy. 6th Session of the Working Party on territorial indicators. Switzerland, 23–24 June 2003, page 2. Available at http://www. oecd.org/dataoecd/42/58/15181284.doc.)
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Working Group of Forest Fire Prevention (WGFFP), an informal working group composed by experts from the national authorities nominated by the EU Member States and the European Commission which deals mainly with operational issues related to wildfire prevention and fighting in the countries. A total of eleven national responses and twenty sub-national responses were compiled from December 2006 till December 2007. For those countries not represented in the WGFFP or that did not reply to the inquiry, the questionnaire was redirected to other national experts from universities, expert networks and national/regional authorities. In order to complete the obtained information from the inquiry, a search in academic, juridical, and official body databases was carried out, which enabled to complete the information for twenty-two EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden). The methodology for the assessment of the collected data was based on (i) the legal and policy documents and literature review, (ii) the statistical and qualitative comparative assessment of data obtained from the questionnaire, and (iii) a deep study of the political instruments for a set of case-studies at the national and sub-national level. On the other hand, the comparative assessment of the legal frameworks and planning documents was based on a regional zoning resulting from the influencing factors of fire policy instruments, namely the spatial and socio-ecological factors, the severity of wildfire risk in the national and regional contexts, and the socio-political perception of wildfire risk (Montiel and Herrero, 2010). This zoning enabled to systematise the abundant and diverse existing information at national and sub-national levels in order to make recommendations adapted to the European context and applied at a multilevel approach. 4. Results and discussion 4.1. Analysis of the wildland fire related laws and plans Wildland fire management issues are usually developed through forest management and civil protection regulations. Anyway, European countries have many different institutional arrangements for organising wildland fire management, ranging from the national forest department alone (i.e. Lithuania and some Spanish regions), to a number of different bodies competent on fires (i.e. Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden). It means that a clear definition of authority, functions, tasks, and responsibilities, together with effective coordination and governance mechanisms for fire management is essential (Aguilar and Montiel, 2011; Morguera and Cirelli, 2009). In general, the legal framework of each country reacts in a more ordered and complete manner to the catastrophic risks that it faces on a regular basis. In Mediterranean countries, where wildfires are a historical problem, legal regulations on fire have a broader development than in Northern, Central, and Eastern European countries, where wildfires are a relatively recent problem. Legal treatment of wildland fires in these countries is still quite incomplete and usually limited to extinction. The comparative assessment of wildland fire related laws and planning documents at the national level focused on the following issues: (1) prevention, (2) detection and suppression; (3) civil responsibility; (4) prescribed fire; and (5) suppression fire practices. Preventive aspects are mainly based in forest management measures whose objective is to avoid fire initiation and also to reduce the size of already existing fires. Thus, the most outstanding legal regulations correspond to forestry provisions, fire risk zoning, specific measures regarding hazardous activities and the location of infrastructures and housing developments, declaration of high-risk seasons, regulation of controlled burns with different objectives (stubble burning, agricultural burns, burns to clear land for pastures) and also educational and
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participative measures towards fire risk awareness and wise fire management. These legal regulations are widespread in Mediterranean countries, although with sharp contrasts. It is worth mentioning the particular case of Portugal, with the most detailed regulations on forest fire prevention as a reaction to the large number of catastrophic wildfires in the summer of 2003. In any case, North-eastern and Eastern European countries too (Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Poland and Czech Republic) are starting to regulate preventive measures similar to those already present in Southern countries, as a consequence of the increase of forest fire risk experienced within the last decade. On the opposite, with regard to regulations on fire detection and on suppression systems, there is a certain balance and similarity between legal development and content in the different European countries, generally within the ambit of civil protection. In this sense, the development of legal prevention measures is indeed a good indicator of the progression of forest fire risk awareness according to recent occurrence of catastrophic fires. It is true that political efforts have recently evolved in some countries from a policy approach focused in emergency suppression measures, involving high costs, towards the promotion of long-term preventive actions. Nevertheless, this evolution doesn't always come along with the development of fire prevention plans with enough financial support. Mediterranean countries invest the largest sums in fire protection, but close to 60% are earmarked for suppression equipment and personnel. A key issue in fire management planning documents is the creation and maintenance of preventive and defensive infrastructures for the protection of environmental resources and human assets at risk. On the other hand, the problem of large wildfires that overcome the suppression capacity of the fire-fighting services is being progressively introduced into wildfire policy instruments, particularly regarding fire risk management in wildland-urban interface areas (Galiana-Martin et al., 2011; Montiel and San-Miguel-Ayanz, 2009). Concerning civil responsibility for wildfire ignition and propagation, administrative and criminal liability are relevant issues in the national forestry and wildfire legislation, especially in Italy, Portugal and Spain. Besides, it is worth mentioning the existence of economic instruments for the compensation of losses caused by forest fires. In Spain there is the Trust for Natural Heritage and Biodiversity whose objectives include supporting sustainable forest management and wildland fire prevention. Likewise, in Spain and France it is also possible to subscribe private insurance policies as instruments in order to compensate the private individuals affected by wildfires. Finally, the regulation of fire use (prescribed fire and suppression fire practices) is one of the major shortcomings in the national legal frameworks and planning documents in Europe. Except for France, where the prescribed burning was introduced by the Forest Act of 9 July 2011, and Portugal, which has a national legal framework on prescribed fire and suppression fire practices particularly developed and innovative since 2004, the regulation of fire use in Europe at the national level is very sketchy (i.e. in Sweden or Poland). In Spain, prescribed fire and suppression fire practices are not considered by the national legal framework, but have been regulated by some Autonomous Regions such as Catalonia or Castile-La Mancha. In other countries like Lithuania, Italy and Germany, these practices have been strictly forbidden during the last decades and they are starting to be experimentally reintroduced for the management of protected areas (Bovio and Ascoli, 2012; Mierauskas, 2012; Montiel and Kraus, 2010). 4.2. Strengths and weaknesses of the forest fire national policy instruments The results obtained from the analysis of the national wildfire legal frameworks and planning documents allow identifying different spatial patterns in Europe. There are several common features between certain countries that enable to detect the strong and weak points of fire management activities through the policy instruments.
Thus, the EU-Member States will be divided up into the following regions in order to identify the existing trends in fire management and regulations and aiming to provide recommendations for the future and to start shifting the current situation towards integrated fire management: - Southern Europe, mainly Mediterranean — The most wildfire-prone zone in Europe, with a long fire history, and the first one to face the challenge of developing legislation and policies. High population density, with a trend of rural exodus and increased human-induced fire hazard. The most outstanding overall trend is an increasing vulnerability to large wildfires. - Nordic countries — Hemiboreal to boreal climate and vegetation, relatively low population density. Even if most of the fires remain being of human nature, there are also more fires of natural origin than in other regions and wildland fire is in general considered as a necessary element in vegetation dynamics. These forests will become increasingly endangered by changed fire hazard and risk due to regional climate change. - Atlantic countries — Zone with lowest wildfire risk in history, natural fires almost absent. Some ecosystems are managed with fire, e.g. the heathlands. Wildfire risk is expected to increase as a consequence of increasing drought recurrence and severity. - Central European countries — Zone with historically very low wildfire occurrence and respective lack of policies. Extremely densely populated, vegetation fragmented by cultural activities, high density of infrastructures that allow rapid access and efficient control of fires. Show the same trend as in Atlantic countries. - East European countries — Zone definitely characterised by transition from the old political and socio-economic system to the new European conditions. Heritage of misconception of fire as an ecological process, institutional weaknesses, decentralisation, privatisation of land / forest ownership, lack of resources, fires associated with other environmental issues (radioactivity, remnants of armed conflicts [UXO, land mines], environmental pollution). The general trend of the rural exodus and increasing drought recurrence and severity is threatening to increase wildfire risk. In general, it is important to draw attention to the fact that most forest policy documents hardly ever mention fire management in the European countries. Its main objective is the implementation of the sustainable development philosophy through sustainable forest management. Indeed, there is a certain imbalance between legal and policy documents. While legislative instruments are quite plentiful and very heterogeneous, the latters are very scarce and the development of wildfire issues is partial and repetitive. The table below summarises the different strengths and weaknesses of the selected wildfire law and policy key issues at the regional level (Table 1). 4.3. The need for a European Framework Directive on fire management Taking into account that wildland fires are one of the most significant problems affecting European territories and societies, especially in wildland-urban interfaces, and likewise considering the great heterogeneity of political measures and regulations on wildland fire management, their insufficiency or inadequacy in many cases, and the wide diversity of fire use situations present in Europe, it appears as necessary defining a normative framework able to update and harmonise the different existing legislations and policies on the matter. The aforementioned framework must start on the basis of the knowledge of the current demands and necessities as well as from the acknowledgement of diversity. It must therefore be flexible enough to improve and favour the effectiveness of the adopted measures by the competent political-administrative authorities. Although wildland fire management is competence of the Member States, the Community scope of the problem of wildland fires and the
Guest editorial Table 1 Regional assessment of fire legislation and policy in the European Union countries. Zones
Strengths & opportunities
Weaknesses & threats
Southern European countries (Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain)
Every country has a wildland fire management policy Development of information systems for fire management Political will to coordinate the different administrative bodies with responsibilities in fire management Improvement of fire suppression efficiency
Central European countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland)
Forest policies understood as iterative, open and dynamic processes Shift in fire policies in some German States, allowing experimental use of fire
Atlantic European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, United Kingdom)
Clear and coherent political processes A wide ranging consultation process Re-evaluation of the role of fire in the maintenance of open landscapes and habitat management Experience in prescribed burning research Growing transparency in the political processes Maintenance of a fire culture in rural activities
Suppression-oriented actions to the detriment of prevention Top-down bureaucratic approach in policy style Need to enhance community-based cooperation Lack of a cross-sectoral approach Traditional burning practices were banned without prior educational programmes Not evident existence of real political will to achieve integrated fire management Intersectoral coordination problems Complete bans to use fire in forests and open landscapes Restrictive legal framework for the use of fire: partial or total fire bans
Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) Northern European countries (Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden)
Consensual tradition in policy processes, formulation and implementation Stakeholders' participation Transparency of political processes Recognition of the natural role of fire in boreal and hemiboreal ecosystems. Absence of restrictive legal framework, and of negative public perception on fire use
Weak stakeholders participation Lack of negotiating tradition Lack of effective coordination Restrictive legal framework for the use of fire in open landscapes
Lack of awareness for forest fire risk in the region Difficulties in political leadership. Intersectoral and multilevel coordination problems Predominance of environmental and timber forest production functions Except for Sweden, lack of expertise in fire management planning and operational implementation
higher effectiveness of the European Union to reach adequate results at European scale justify this initiative of facing a harmonisation of the laws on the matter, based on the article 175.1 of the European Union Treaty. In any case, the different impact of this problem in the various regions of the Union justifies a flexible harmonisation, being the Framework Directive the proper juridical act to achieve basic homogeneity of a quite scattered regulation (since wildland fires have transversal causes and effects involving multiple matters and sectors), which enabled to accomplish common objectives through the considered means by each Member State (Agudo, 2010). It is true that the European Union has announced several regulations on wildland fire prevention since the year 1992, whose validity has gradually expired (Montiel and San-Miguel-Ayanz, 2009). Other initiatives on the matter, of sectoral nature too, have been set out in the European Rural Development Regulation, in the European Union Communications on natural disaster prevention and response, and in the Green Paper on Forest Protection and Information in the EU: preparing forests for climate change (SEC(2010)163 final). But neither of these norms featured an integrated, permanent and binding
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nature to deal with a problem of bigger and bigger scope and consequences in Europe. That is why a renewed, integrated and long-term approach for wildland fire management in Europe is recommended. Wildland fires are not only a problem in Mediterranean countries. In the rest of the regions, the risk is also present although intensity and significance are variable. The intervention of the Union, from an integrated, framework perspective, is justified by several reasons: (i) by the transboundary effects that wildland fires may generate and pose, (ii) by the existence of many diverse environmental causes and consequences related to this risk but also of different nature, which require coordination at European Union scale, (iii) because wildland fires are a middle- and long-term problem linked to the effects of climate change, and (iv) because means and costs involved in actions taken as for integrated wildland fire management are on the increase. On the other hand, fire management as a tool of land management appears in each and every country and region of the Union, setting the challenge and need of a proper regulation in order to accomplish the pursued aim in a reliable, effective manner (Montiel and Kraus, 2010). Regarding the proposed juridical form, it's worth mentioning that Directives force Member States to achieve the goals set in the Community norm but entrust each State with the choice of the means to accomplish it (art. 249.III of the European Union Treaty). Besides, the Protocol no. 2 of the Treaty states that “other things being equal, directives should be preferred to regulations and Framework Directives to detailed measures”. Therefore, the initiative for a new Framework Directive on fire management means an opportunity to harmonise and update the national regulations on the matter, defining a common reference which guaranteed effectiveness and adaptation to the specificity and diversity of the European context (Rego et al., 2010). It is set out as a proper way to avoid uniformity in the juridical treatment of the matter within the whole territory of the European Union and at the same time to establish a harmonising, basic and minimal arrangement, flexible enough to avoid an undesired homogenisation.
5. Conclusions During the past thirty years the awareness of European policymakers towards forest fires has derived from catastrophic incidents. In this sense, the wildland fire legislation and policies have generally been fast and ad hoc reactions to catastrophic situations instead of proactive mitigation measures. They are therefore short-term suppressionoriented policies, in which the approach of fire exclusion from the ecosystems prevails. On the other hand, the legislation on fire use is very restrictive or inexistent in the European countries. In this situation of ineffective policies that have resulted in the increase of fire risk and occurrence due to social conflicts, and in the proliferation of large wildfires, the need of new policy approaches on fire management becomes clear, to face the new demands and challenges in the context of climate change and trends of global change. A shift from the prevalent punitive regime to the regulation of fire use practices, and from fire exclusion to professional and technical use of fire is required. There are significant contributions and advances in some national and regional regulations (namely the Portuguese, Spanish and French legal frameworks and policy instruments) which provide an interesting starting point for introducing the concept of integrated fire management in European fire policies. This is a concept for planning and operational systems that include social, economical, cultural and ecological evaluations with the objective of minimising the damage and maximising the benefits of fire (Rego et al., 2010). On the other hand, fire problem is not limited to the Mediterranean region. The scope of the problem and the need of coordination to deal
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Guest editorial
with it likewise demand a Community approach in order to provide efficient and common solutions to general challenges. Despite the different impact of fire risk in the various regional contexts and the different political-administrative systems existing in each country, there is a need for further harmonisation of wildfire regulations at the European level. It would contribute to give coherence to the very disperse existing policy instruments. However, political competences and the existing diversity at the national and regional level recommend sufficient flexibility in a common legal framework to avoid any uniform treatment across EU territory. Consequently, from the FIRE PARADOX European Project, the initiative of a new European Framework Directive on Fire has been set out. This legal framework should favour and improve the efficiency of fire policy measures adopted at the national and regional level. It would cover the political and legal gaps that presently exist in some countries and would also facilitate the responses to current realities and demands, by means of defining an integrated fire management system adapted to the complex and specific European context. Acknowledgements I hereby acknowledge the members of the Module 7 “Policies and Practices” of the European Integrated Project (IP) Fire Paradox who collaborated in this research, the Working Group of Forest Fire Prevention (WGFFP) established by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and the many experts from universities and expert networks who have contributed to the results discussed in this paper. I would also like to thank Dr. Peter Moore, Dr. Armando González-Cabán and Dr. Paulo Fernandes for the critical review of the project deliverables that originated this paper. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission for funding this research through the VI Framework Programme and Dr. Francisco Rego, as the coordinator of the IP Fire Paradox, for making it possible. References Abdullah, A., 2002. A review and analysis of legal and regulatory aspects of forest fires in South East Asia. Project FireFight South East Asia (IUCN and WWF). (51 p.). Agee, J.K., Skinner, C.N., 2005. Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments. Forest Ecology and Management 211, 83–96 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2005.01.034. Agudo, J., 2010. An integrative approach at European level for wildfires: towards a Framework Directive. European Energy and Environmental Law Review 19, 87–101. Aguilar, S., Montiel, C., 2011. The challenge of applying governance and sustainable development to wildland fire management in Southern Europe. Journal of Forestry Research 22 (4), 627–639 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11676-011-0168-6. Bauer, J., Kniivilä, M., Schmithüsen, F., 2004. Forest legislation in Europe: how 23 countries approach the obligation to reforest, public access and use of non-wood forest products. Geneva Timber and Forest Discussion Paper 37. UNECE-FAO. Bovio, G., Ascoli, D., 2012. Fuoco prescritto: stato dell'arte della normativa italiana, L'Italia Forestale e Montana. Italian Journal of Forest and Mountain Environments 67 (4), 347–358 http://dx.doi.org/10.4129/ifm.2012.4.04.
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