Fires across conservation frontiers: alternative management approaches for addressing wildfires in East and Southern African savanna-protected areas

Colonially inherited fire suppression policies and the expansion of exclusionary protected areas across East and Southern African savannas have engendered a wildfire paradox. Inside protected areas, efforts to eliminate fires from the landscape have paradoxically resulted in the accumulation of flammable biomass and higher intensity wildfires. Outside protected areas, rangelands are continuously reconfigured and reterritorialized, emerging as contentious biopolitical frontiers where livestock have replaced fire as the dominant fuel consumer. ‘Bottom-up’ fire management is increasingly recognised as an alternative fire management strategy to effectively and equitably address the wildfire paradox. Yet, there has been little investigation into the framing, nature, and extent of bottom-up approaches and the assumptions informing their implementation, exposing local governance structures to external appropriation and accelerating savanna degradation. This thesis interrogates current understandings of bottom-up fire management approaches across East and Southern African conservation landscapes to identify opportunities and challenges for their implementation, specifically their ability to mitigate wildfires, improve savanna health, and contribute towards resilient local livelihoods. To do this, a mixed-methodological bricolage approach was taken, consisting of two independent systematic reviews of the literature, fieldwork conducted in Kenya, and the development of a novel Belief Network model. The results show that wildfires are symptomatic of deep-rooted land and resource-based conflicts which have and continue to emerge from policy interventions supposedly designed to address inequalities. In this regard, bottom-up fire management approaches are externally constructed, governed, and reinforce ‘divide-and-rule’ policies pursued by colonial governments.