Gretchen Walters

Savannas on Fire: Linking Conservation, Biology, and Traditional Knowledge

Plateaux Batéké National Park is located far from roads thus boats become vehicle of choice.

High fire season occurs in the dry season fires (June-September). Here, Raman

The conservation of biological diversity is a serious challenge to parks in developing countries. In addition to insufficient staff and resources, there is often a lack of knowledge about the ecosystem needed to make management decisions. Local ecological knowledge can play a role in management, but is often not utilized. In the case of local knowledge of fire use, these regimes were initially considered to be environmentally destructive in African, Australian, and American savannas. Research has since proven that fire and biodiversity are linked; fire is often a practical solution to management problems, and often necessary to maintain savanna ecosystems.

In Gabon, Central Africa, only 20% of the country is covered in savanna while the rest is forested. Most management practices are therefore oriented towards tropical timber while savanna management is non-existent. This is a problem for national park management given that 6 of the 13 national parks contain savannas.
These savannas contain numerous species not found in forested areas, and without management, will likely disappear from Gabon as forest encroaches on these grassy habitats.

Plateaux Batéké National Park (PBNP) was created in 2002. This park is composed of a forest-savanna mosaic, an ecotone where the coastal forest block transitions into the vast interior savannas of Central Africa. These savannas house unique assemblages of insects, birds, mammals, and plants?several of which find the limits of their ranges within the ecotone.

The park's management objective is to maintain the existing forest-savanna mosaic and its associated biological and cultural diversity. Initial management efforts have primarily focused on anti-poaching patrols. Eliminating hunting from the park also eliminates the fire-based methods used by Batéké hunters. These hunters have historically burned savanna to create grazing areas for wildlife. The effects of removing fire from the park are unknown. Thus, understanding savanna management and cultural fire use becomes very important.

This study will document local fire practices associated with savanna resource utilisation and apply it to the management of PBNP, Gabon. We will work with Batéké inhabitants to document historic and present burning methods and look at fire-effects on plants, birds, and mammals. This information will become the basis for a PBNP fire plan and relevant for management in the other five savanna parks.

The research team comprises local informants from six villages around the park?s perimeter and numerous managers and scientists. This group of people represents the Prefecture of the Plateaux, the Gabonese National Parks Council, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the University College of London, the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Projet Protection des Gorilles.

For more information contact g.walters@ucl.ac.uk

Project Update: June 2007

Patrice Christy.

One of the questions often asked in my research is, “But what about the birds?” Here is my response: “I don’t know, let’s ask Patrice.” Patrice Christy is Gabon’s bird expert and has published several bird books for Central Africa. He has been birdwatching near the project site for years; when asked to contribute bird data to our fire plan research, he agreed.

However, he was missing a few observation periods. With Rufford Small Grant Foundation Funding, he is able to complete his dataset. He made his first site visit this June with spectacular results. He found a new record for Gabon and made observations that are critical for understanding seasonal bird reproduction. In some cases, we observed birds hunting at the flame front, diving for insects that were fleeing the fire.

In other cases, such as Temminck's Courser (Cursorios temminckii), we observed birds in newly burned savanna (required habitat). In developing a fire plan for the park, we will take these observations into account in order to create and preserve habitat needed for Plateaux bird species, while avoiding burning in seasons of high bird reproduction.

Final Report

Read more about the activities undertaken and findings of this project in the final report below.

File Download	Size
Final Report.doc	704.5 KB
Bai Djobo Report.pdf	643.12 KB
Fire Primer Walters.pdf	732.58 KB

Further Project Update: October 2008

Fire Plan Progress

All Gabon National Parks are currently engaging in simultaneous system-wide development of management plans. For six out of the 13 national parks, this includes thinking about managing fire-prone and fire-dependent savanna environments. We attended meetings for Plateaux Batéké National Park on March 6-15 and September 5-6, 2008. The management plan is still being drafted, but supports the development of a fire plan. We are working towards creating this plan and once the general management plan is adopted we will move forward with a fire plan meeting, as funded by this Rufford Small Grant. The results of the social, vegetation, and bird research funded under this grant will be critical in plan development.

In further preparation for this meeting, we have visited other parks and ranches that use fire as a management tool, in order to gather local lessons in management. In September, I was invited to talk about fire on Radio Massuku’s “Nature et Nous” with Sandra Nse. Communicating to the public about fire’s role in the ecosystem is important, as it underscores the positive role that fire can play in terms of local hunting and gathering practices as well as in and managing protected areas.