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Fighting forest fires... on paper!

It is not every day that the Nuevas Esperanzas team spends the day making a large paper forest and then seeing the paper trees go up in (paper) flames.  But this is exactly what we did to prepare for a workshop on the prevention and control of forest fires in the Protected Areas of León and Chinandega.  These environmentally sensitive areas cover most of the Maribios volcano range, a beautiful landscape which is sadly marred by the dark scars of forest fires which are prevalent during Nicaragua’s dry season.  The workshop was organised by The Nature Conservancy, MARENA (the Nicaraguan government department for the environment), the army and Nuevas Esperanzas.  Members of the communities located in the Protected Areas were invited to participate along with representatives of various government departments and NGOs organising the event.

The workshop began with presentations from the Civil Defence division of the army and MARENA.  Enrique Bolaños, Nuevas Esperanzas’ agricultural engineer, followed with a presentation of the work done during our recent ‘Forests and Fires’ project.  He reported on nineteen forest fires which we had logged during the last dry season and explained some of the causes and effects which have been identified.

Next though it was time to get practical.  Nuevas Esperanzas had been assigned the responsibility of organising a participatory exercise with the purpose of encouraging members of fire fighting brigades, residents of Protected Areas and representatives of participating institutions to share their opinions about the principal causes of fires, the underlying roots of these problems and potential solutions.   The small groups were facilitated by the staff of Nuevas Esperanzas and MARENA.

Our large burning forest was installed as a poster backdrop at the front of the hall representing the problem to be addressed in small groups.  The first task for each group was to study a set of cards which represent the causes/types of fires typically encountered in the protected areas.  These included the practice of slash and burn clearing, honey extraction, hunting and lighting fires for fun.  Each card included a drawing to facilitate participation by those with limited levels of literacy. The group was asked to order the cards in order of impact.  The fires which caused the most damage were placed at the top of the list.  The facilitators encouraged debate within the groups to arrive at a consensus or majority decision.

The second task was for each to consider a different cause of fire in more depth using a ‘problem tree’ analysis.  The trunk of the tree represents the problem and each group was given a drawing of a tree on flipchart paper with a different problem written on the trunk.  The four problems considered were slash and burn, honey extraction, hunting and regeneration of pasture.  Underlying causes and immediate causes were identified and marked on the deeper and shallow roots of the tree drawing respectively.  Effects of the problems were written onto the branches of the trees.

The last task involved using paper water drops to put out the paper forest fire!  Each drop represented a potential solution to prevent, control or mitigate fires and these drops were stuck onto the burning forest to extinguish the problems.  The solutions written on the drops were based on Nuevas Esperanzas’ conclusions from a study undertaken in the 2009/10 burning season as part of our ‘Forests and Fires’ project.  These included voluntary fire brigades, better warning systems, education and conscientization of the problem and fire breaks.  Each group was asked to order the cards in order of potential impact, with facilitators encouraging debate within the group.

Three of the four groups were made up of members of the fire brigades and communities from the Protected Areas and the fourth was made up of the 'experts’ including the local Mayor’s office, MARENA and the army.

The results were then displayed on the burning forest with the causes stuck to the tree trunks, the roots of the problems forming the roots of the trees and the water drops putting out the flames.  Despite having different opinions about some of the topics discussed, all those involved agreed that the problem of forest fires is not something which is the responsibility of one community, organisation or government department. It is the responsibility of all of us to address the problem.  The Nuevas Esperanzas team were happy to leave the burning paper forest with MARENA who plan to use it for other workshops and training sessions.  We hope that fighting forest fires in the Protected Areas will soon be as easy as putting out the paper fires with paper water drops.

27/11/10