The traditional work of collecting leaves and firewood in the forest became outdated and abandoned. But the result could be several devastating forest fires in southern Europe.
There is little doubt that a warmer climate increases the risk of forest fires, such as the violent fires that ravaged Greece in 2023.
But other factors can also increase the risk of forest fires.
This is the opinion of researchers Andrew S. Mathews from the University of California and Fabio Malfatti from the Italian Centro Ricerche EtnoAntropologiche.
They argue that major changes in agriculture have changed the forest in the countryside, making it much more flammable.
Talked to old Italians
The researchers have investigated the Monte Pisano region in Italy. Significant changes have taken place here since the 1960s, in connection with relocation and the transition to industrial agriculture.
Through searches in historical documents and conversations with older people from the region, the researchers gained knowledge about how these changes have in turn changed the forests.
People in these areas have a very long tradition of using the resources in the forest. They collected large quantities of leaves from the ground, both for use as a substrate for livestock and as fertilizer in the olive groves. Branches and twigs were used as fuel.
The forests were also used as sheep pastures, and the shepherds had a tradition of occasionally burning down smaller areas in controlled fires.
Together, this resulted in more open forests, with little combustible material on the ground.
Bushes and ladders before the flames
The contrast to today’s forests is enormous, according to the researchers.
During a survey in 2014, Mathews recorded dense bushes and thick layers of leaves on the ground. A mass of dead branches and twigs could easily act as ladders for a fire to climb from the ground up to the treetops.
But there has been little attention to these changes, the researchers believe.
This is probably because the clearing work in the forests was carried out by people of low status, such as women, children and shepherds. The traditional use of the forest also did not provide visible income and was considered unfashionable and backward, Mathews and Malfatti write and argue:
Authorities and researchers never realized the importance of this work for fire safety.
Probably common practice
The result is that today we have increasingly flammable landscapes, the researchers believe.
– We believe that a better understanding of past practices can suggest ways to make landscapes less susceptible to fire in the future, write the researchers.
They believe this does not only apply in Monte Pisano.
Presumably the practice of collecting leaves and twigs from the forest was common in many places in Italy and other Mediterranean countries. And not only there.
A study from the Czech Republic in 2018 showed that a large proportion of forests were used in this way until recently. This is probably a matter of thousand-year-old traditions. Other researchers have documented such traditions both in Nepal, Japan and Korea.
There is also a trend towards displacement and less use of controlled fire in areas of Africa and Latin America, write Mathews and Malfatti.
Perhaps the knowledge from women and shepherds of earlier times can be of use to many, they speculate.
Reference:
AS Mathews & F. Malfatti, Wildfires as legacies of agropastoral abandonment: Gendered litter raking and managed burning as historic fire prevention practices in the Monte Pisano of Italy, Ambio, April 2024.
