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Uncharted territory: governance opportunities for wildfire and the case of Cyprus

Judith Kirschner , Toddi Steelman , Iris Charalambidou, Salih Gucel, Petros Petrou, Kostakis Papageorgiou, Achilleas Karayiannis, George Boustras

Abstract

Fire in the landscape is a multi-faceted ecological, evolutionary and cultural process, but global environmental and social change are pushing fire activity and impact beyond known trajectories. This trend is supported by a wealth of reports and frameworks urging leaders, policy makers and practitioners to shift wildfire paradigms. In this article, we conducted a targeted review to distil five wildfire challenges that we argue form opportunities for their governance (research aim 1). We exemplified our arguments by drawing from the case of Cyprus (research aim 2), a relatively small country and island in the south-east European Mediterranean basin at risk of extreme wildfire impact. Findings from a systematic literature review, policy review, and qualitative data collection track back to the initial framing, suggesting that Cyprus illustrates, on a compact scale, the potential for change in thinking of and acting on wildfire in flammable landscapes globally.

WF23177  Accepted 13 April 2024

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