Firebreaks as indigenous knowledge system and cultural practice: an emerging counternarrative in forest fire governance

• Burning is a key approach to forest fires governance. • Effective firebreaks application is rooted in cultural relations with fires. • Kaw way of governing is key for tackling global forest fires governance. This paper studies Karen Indigenous approaches in forest fire governance, contextualized in rotational farming practices and embedded in Karen communities’ cultural norms, values, and life philosophy. It presents the Kaw way of governing as Karen communities’ strategies to sustain their livelihoods and key element to tackle the problem of uncontrollable forest fires. Putting firebreak application as Karen communities’ Indigenous knowledge, it challenges the dominant narrative of the politics of blame, which positions burning from rotational farming, also known as swidden agriculture, as a key decisive factor causing (uncontrollable) forest fires and the transboundary haze and air pollution problem. We argue that rather than viewing burning from rotational farming practices as the source of problem, policy makers should embrace Karen communities’ Indigenous knowledge surrounding firebreak application as a central part of the solution in regional forest fire governance. It compares Karen communities’ knowledge and cultural practices surrounding the organization and application of firebreaks in the Salween Peace Park, Kawthoolei, Karen State, Myanmar, with the way farmers applied prescribed burning in Mae On District of Chiang Mai Province in Northern Thailand.