Colonial forestry, not communities, behind Himalayan wildfire risk: Study

DEHRADUN: A new research study published in Annals of the American Association of Geographers -- the flagship journal of Association of American Geographers -- challenges the conventional view that Himalayan forest fires are primarily caused by human ignitions and climate change.It argues instead that today’s highly flammable landscapes are largely a legacy of colonial-era forestry, which expanded dense and combustible chir pine forests across the region.Based on fieldwork in Uttarakhand’s Assiganga valley, the study found that local communities’ everyday dependence on forests — collecting fuelwood, gathering leaf litter and regularly using forest resources — actually reduces wildfire risk by removing combustible material from the forest floor, limiting the spread of small surface fires into large destructive events.The peer-reviewed study, ‘When plantations stop looking like plantations: Fire, plantation logics, and forest use in the Uttarakhand Himalaya’, concludes that “sustainable fire governance must move away from blaming local ignitions and instead recognise that communities’ continued access to and use of forests is a key part of reducing wildfire risk.”“Fire futures will be shaped not only by climate change but also by how land is used and governed,” the study stated.The study, published in July, traces the origins of flammable landscapes back to the early 20th-century, when colonial forestry transformed biodiverse Himalayan ecologies to maximize commercial timber and resin extraction. In the former princely state of Tehri-Garhwal, forest revenue reached Rs 2.9 lakh in 1908–1909 — nearly triple the region’s land revenue — justifying heavy state investment in Pinus roxburghii (Chir pine).By the 1970s, pine generated nearly 80% of forest revenue in the Uttarkashi division.Although a 1981 govt decree banned commercial tree felling above 1,000m, the ecological legacies persisted. Without thinning, pine stands grew increasingly dense, raising pine dominance from an estimated 50% to 80% in managed areas. This silvicultural shift established landscape-scale fuel continuity through thick, highly flammable layers of dry pine needles. The management legacy created massive understory accumulation of dry pine needles, establishing continuous, highly combustible fuel layers across mountain slopes, the study said.Author of the study, Kapil Yadav, a postdoctoral research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society, told TOI: “As the risk of wildfires grows in Uttarakhand, one of the biggest mistakes we can make is to abandon the practices that have helped limit their severity. The catastrophic wildfires seen in Europe and North America are, in addition to climate change, largely due to high fuel loads resulting from reduced human activity. In contrast, in Uttarakhand, the local community’s reliance on forests for grazing and firewood collection helps keep biomass levels low, reducing the risk of high-intensity fires.”“If people stop using these forests, wildfire intensity and their catastrophic consequences can increase,” Yadav added.The study concludes by saying that future fires can be addressed by “not only recognising indigenous and traditional burning practices, but also supporting broader struggles by indigenous peoples and local communities for land, livelihoods and territory.”