With an eye on fire: Can neo-rural settlers create fire resilience in Portugal?

This paper explores the contributions of neo-rural settlers to fire resilience in central Portugal, an area that has suffered from population decline and land abandonment for decades. An analysis of qualitative data from interviews with neo-rural settlers shows that they could be valuable partners in attempts to bolster several priorities of fire management in Portugal, including strengthening the property regime, creating a diversified rural landscape, and fostering collaborative networks in fire-affected areas. This article also presents some of the constraints that the settlers face in establishing themselves as agents of local landscape change and fire mitigation. • Neo-rural settlers are significant in abandoned areas of Portugal. • Fire prevention could benefit from working more directly with neo-rural settlers. • Neo-rural settlers can help recover a mosaic landscape with farming, grazing and forestry. • Settlers are buying and amending land use through formal and informal means. • Settlers create information networks on their land-based activities.