ABSTRACT
Fire is one of the environmental risks expected to increase in connection with climate change. Wildfires will be more common in regions where today they are considered less likely, and the implications for formerly grazed landscapes may be significant. The European Union FireSmart project is a project whose objectives are to identify obstacles that hinder the effectiveness of forest fire preventive measures and to derive recommendations to integrate prevention practices in regular forest management plans. The project tackles both European and local levels of addressing forest fire prevention. The local level has been covered mainly through the implementation of test areas in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Documents containing information about different methods and practices of forest fire prevention in Europe have been gathered in a database, which now contains more than 1,400 entries. The material available in this database has been analysed according to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of different land-management practices and for each of the five different aspects studied; agroforestry, fire causes, preventive silviculture, wildland-urban interfaces and awareness raising and training. The analysis was then used to derive practical recommendations on how to turn current negative fire prevention factors into viable and proactive factors able to strengthen prevention methods. Agroforestry was found to be a strong preventive method and the strengths and weaknesses of the method as well as the practical recommendations for increasing the preventive values of agroforestry are presented. The implications and possibilities for future wood pasture are considered in this chapter.
