Restoring fire‐degraded social forests via biocultural approaches: a key strategy to safeguard the Amazon legacy

Abstract

Wildfires have emerged as an escalating source of tropical forest degradation with a cascade of negative consequences for the sustainable development of tropical regions. This is particularly the case in the Amazon forest region as wildfires have already degraded a considerable extension of both secondary and old‐growth forests, including “social forests” managed by traditional communities into protected areas. Here, we advocate in favor of a neglected perspective recognizing wildfires as an escalating threat of unanticipated but certainly devasting impacts on social forests, communal territories, the social reproduction of local/traditional forest‐based communities, and the network of protected areas devoted to safeguard the Amazon forest legacy, including ecosystem services of global relevance such as climate regulation. In response to this prognosis, we call for a research agenda focused on fire drivers, impacts, management, and mitigation, including the establishment of biocultural restoration initiatives/pilot programs in communal territories. Initiatives should integrate co‐produced goals, approaches, and technology to economically, socially, and politically empower those stakeholders with an effective interest in forest persistence although they are already vulnerable. Finally, we propose a governance model connecting key stakeholders to scale up fire‐related biocultural restoration in the Amazon region with the potential to produce timely and globally relevant knowledge and lessons. We hope our ideas stimulate key stakeholders to promote biocultural initiatives able to guarantee the emergence of sustainable territories and thus safeguard the climate‐buffering Amazon forest and its legacy for the sake of both local and global society.