Avaliação da eficácia da implementação de brigadas indígenas como política de combate a incêndios florestais

Abstract

Wildfires cause environmental degradation and human health problems. Its occurrence involves several factors, more than the presence of combustible material and the appropriate weather conditions. Indigenous communities employ fire in their ordinary life, which means that the land occupied by them have high hotspots registration rates. In 2013, we created indigenous brigades to face the wildfire on their lands. This study examined the efficacy of this procedure as factor of burning reduction. We used data from activities of these brigades, hotspots and GIS techniques in comparative analysis of the 2013 and 2014 events comparatively with the previous years ones. The results showed positive effects in reducing wildfires in the area of the three ethnic groups involved, and the existence of other factors that may have been threshold for the success of the others. The integration of data, information and several factors showed itself be essential to understand the problems related to combat fires on indigenous lands and to head new approaches that may actually contribute to reduce the records of hotspots.