Integrated forest fires management in Morocco

new national strategy and action plan 2019-2028 (pilot study between FAO and Morocco)

Abstract

A new national strategy for prevention and fight against forest fires is being developed in Morocco. The establishment of this strategy is carried out step by step. The first step helped to better understand the Moroccan territorial context and concrete expectations of stakeholders vis-à-vis the strategy. The second step allowed to know and understand the organizational methods adopted in three Mediterranean countries: Spain, France and Italy. With these lessons, the FAO and Moroccan teams (High Commission for Water and Forests of the fight against desertification) proposed a plan that must adapted to regional and local Moroccan specificities, namely: • A national strategy which sets up the general framework created and inspired the world relevant and operational guidelines (FAO, EU, Sendai Framework UNIISDR ...) • A regional plan that adapts the national strategy to specific local / regional conditions by risk basin. The regional plan includes a component which applies to all provinces and helps coordinate the technical, human and financial resources specific to each province. • A territorial plan, adopting the concept of the scale '' forest massif ''. This plan allows to implement adapted actions to the territorial specificity related to prevention, forecasting and fight against forest fires provided in the national and regional plans. Operational monitoring and implementation of the pilot strategy is based on the so-called Integrated Forest Fire Management Cycle, namely the following 4 phases: • Knowledge and risk assessment of forest fires (fire causes, regulation / legislation ...) • Risk prevention of forest fires (public awareness, forest management ...) • Fire preparedness and intervention by adapted tools (prepositioning of the means of intervention, training, acquisition of equipment ...) • Restoration and rehabilitation of damaged systems (impact, evaluation of the intensity and severity of the fire, reforestation / regeneration ...)