From Burning to Learning

Adaptive Governance to Wildfires in the North-West Province of South Africa

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5199800
AutoresDewald Van Niekerk (0000-0002-4571-4205, North-West University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen48
Número2
Páginas329-339
Fecha de publicación2014-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Human Ecology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0970-9274 • E-ISSN: 2456-6608
EditorialKamla Raj Enterprises (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1080/09709274.2014.11906802
OpenAlexW2339852715
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas11

Wild fires are a recurring natural hazard on the African continent. Although wildfires are necessary for ecological management and regeneration of certain species, the risk posed transcends into impacts on sustainabledevelopment and the protection of livelihoods. Better management of wildfires becomes necessary because changeswithin the environment are becoming more complex. Social and ecological systems are intertwined and theresulting “complex or mega-system” needs to be able to learn and adapt to change. Research over a two-year periodin the North-West Province of South Africa considered the adaptation in management (systems), which took placebetween various role-players in multi-layered and polycentric institutions. Through a qualitative research design,the 2011 and 2012 wild fire seasons were investigated. The notion of adaptive governance was used as benchmarkto determine which transformative actions took place. The prime objective of the research is to what extent hasadaptive governance taken place during the 2011 and 2012 wild fire seasons in North-West Province, SouthAfrica? The research found that role-players were able to adapt their management systems to include aspects suchas information provision, dealing with conflict, induced legal compliance, provision of infrastructure and resources,and encouraged participation and adaptation. The paper recommends that emphasis on conflict management andresolution, applying nesting through various management levels, devised rules for wild fire management relevantwith the ecological conditions, and the implementation of accountability mechanisms to be put in place

Accountability · Adaptive Management · Business · Climate change · Corporate governance · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Hazard · Livelihood · Political science · Sociology · Transformative learning · Disaster Management and Resilience · Ecology