2023-11-24 11:07:23
Unfortunately, chronicling fires in rural areas is no longer news to the Córdoba media. With the contribution of climate and winds, thousands of hectares are systematically burned each year, which implies often irreparable losses for the province’s ecosystems.
In 2020 alone, one of the worst years in recent times, 350 thousand hectares burned in Córdoba.
The northwest arc, a sector where native forests, great biodiversity and livestock farms combine, is, according to producers and experts, under constant threat from fire. They point out that current regulations do not allow adequate maintenance to prevent flames.
Rural societies in the north of Córdoba, including Jesús María, prepared a report in which they record the difficulties that emerge from Law 9,814 (law of Territorial Planning of Native Forests of the Province of Córdoba) in order to prevent and combat rural fires .
Specifically, they affirm that the restriction on land use prevents actions that might help prevent fire, such as integrated livestock farming. “Cattle ingest natural grass that is fuel for fire. They call them ‘natural firefighters’. And by not being able to raise livestock and control the pastures, the dry material accumulates. And when the fire comes, that’s gasoline,” said an expert who worked on the report that will be presented to the public in the coming days and which will show the areas that burn most frequently.
The lack of infrastructure also conspires, as it hinders the work of firefighters, producers denounce.
“We are seeing native forests being burned, but producers’ houses and fields are also being burned. It has been happening for many years and we have not been able to provide a preventative solution,” added an expert who knows the area like few others.
The cleaning of the perimeter pits, internal pits and firebreak strips, mandatory according to the regulations under application of the Environment Secretariat of Córdoba, constitute tools to avoid the disasters caused by fire.
However, rural societies in the northwest believe that the provincial portfolio should go further and consider changes. “Making cuts in fields that have some development is possible. Now, in those that are completely closed and do not produce anything, cleaning a bite is expensive. The producer must have some economic return to do so. If not, what happens is that the pit that remains closed is combustible material and when a fire comes it is impossible to stop. That’s why it reaches the interfaces, the houses and fields of other neighboring producers,” said a producer interested in the issue, who stated that “there was no response from the Environment to our requests.”
There are also complaints regarding the collection of taxes on spaces where production is prevented, which ends up causing abandonment and, consequently, increases the risk of fires.
The head of the Córdoba Environmental Forum, Alejandro Kopta, maintained that in practice there are portions of red zones where livestock production is carried out and this does not necessarily prevent fires. “As the forest grows, you have a different fuel material. In the attempt to make pastures or to make red yellow, you are changing pastures. When you intervene in the forest you vary the composition of the fuel. When we talk regarding livestock, we talk regarding favoring herbaceous plants and with it, the fuel that accelerates the fire,” he noted.
“The red aspect is essential to achieve conservation of the forest,” he stated.
The areas of the map
According to the so-called “forest law”, in Córdoba there are 2,393,791 hectares belonging to Category 1, which is usually painted red and corresponds to an area of high conservation value. This merits protection due to its outstanding biological values and watersheds. It represents 82% of the total forest area.
Category 2 (yellow), meanwhile, includes areas with medium conservation value “that may be degraded or in recovery, but that with restoration can acquire a high conservation value.” There are 530,194 hectares, 18% of the total.
According to the report prepared by the rural societies of the northwest, since 2010, the year the law was created, one million hectares have burned. 75% corresponds to Category 1 and 2 forests: 50% in yellow zones and 25% in red zones.
Another of the questions from northwest producers is that the Territorial Planning Map has not been updated since the creation of the law in 2010, something that should be done every five years. “They are legislating with a map that is not real, that where it says there are mountains there are no mountains. And that prevents work because any action is outside the law. The fields where work can be done end up being set on fire by the other fields where prevention cannot be done,” said another producer.
Kopta agrees with this consideration. However, he points out: “The point is with what criteria it is updated and for whose benefit.”
One of the underlying complaints is that resources for forest conservation that come from the Nation are often directed to environmental movements, while rural producers receive a smaller portion “since we both try to take care of the environment,” they noted.
“Córdoba never handled the native forest issue well. Since it does not move the needle on the electoral issue, it is not a problem for politics,” criticized a producer and rural leader.
An expert in environmental law who usually works on these issues said that for Córdoba, territorial planning “is an eternal debt.”
He pointed out that there have been discussions between the different rural entities and the provincial authorities since the moment the aforementioned law was created.
“The most serious thing is that when the map was made it was not made with criteria such as the possibility of a fire or the roots of the people in the area. If there is a risk of fire it is of no use. We have to achieve a balance,” he indicated.
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