What is the role of fire in rewilding? Synthesising peer-reviewed literature into four thematic discourses

Abstract

Current conservation strategies must acknowledge the multifaceted role of fire as a key ecosystem process and a socioecological threat. Understanding the role of fire in the context of rewilding is critical due to the need to implement and scale-up nature recovery strategies in the face of altered fire regimes and other anthropogenic pressures. Despite the gradual incorporation of the concept of fire into the rewilding literature, views surrounding fire’s contribution to rewilding remain complex and unclear. We have therefore conducted a structured literature review in order to synthesise the main discourses surrounding the role of fire in rewilding so that researchers and practitioners are better aware of the opportunities and risks when considering fire as part of rewilding programmes. By classifying arguments based on their positive/supportive or negative/cautious perceptions towards fire and rewilding and extracting common themes, we were able to identify four broadly distinct discourses describing potential ways in which fire – or fire management – and rewilding could be considered within the landscape: A) fire as an ecosystem process to be introduced through rewilding, B) fire as a socioecological risk to be averted by rewilding, C) fire as a potential hazard brought by rewilding, requiring management, and D) fire as a beneficial management strategy which is put at risk by rewilding. We describe the main themes and common arguments presented by discourses A to D, outlining context and trends in occurrence of sources assigned to each discourse. Better integration of fire and rewilding will require clarifying differences in rewilding definitions and acknowledging strong context dependence of fire management options, decision-making processes and conservation outcomes. As rewilding strategies expand into areas with diverse fire dependencies, histories, and vulnerabilities, thematic commonalities across fire and rewilding discourses reveal strong potential for synergies between the use of fire and rewilding for conservation.