Traditional fire management maintains a mosaic heathland landscape

What is it about?

In the subalpine heathlands in Ethiopia, where dominant Erica shrubs outgrow consumption by cattle, provision of good cattle habitat requires fire. We found that fire and cattle interact to maintain a relatively stable system, where fuel limitation in early succession creates fire breaks that prevent landscape-wide wildfires. The same negative feedback protects the Erica from degradation by too frequent fires.

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Why is it important?

Conservation efforts to increase carbon storage, aims to reduce fire (which is illegal) and grazing. This can lead to larger and more high-intensity wildfires in the future. Wildfires are more likely to occur during extreme droughts. This can lead to humus fires killing the underground lignotubers, from which the Erica regenerates. This would cause type-conversion into grassland and loss of resilience.

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