Institutional coordination of prescribed and controlled burns in Mexico

Fire management in Mexico has been promoted by various governmental and academic institutions, as well as organizations of civil society, as a strategy to minimize the negative impacts of forest wildfires and maximize the positive effects of fire. One of its objectives is to keep the occurrence of forest fires within the range of variation of natural fire regimes for each ecosystem. Prescribed burns and controlled burning are tools that can be conducted to accomplish fire management goals. In Mexico there has been a recent promotion of these practices, but there is little information on institutional coordination in their execution. It is essential to generate this information in order to improve these practices, following the principle of adaptive management. In this paper we describe the institutional heterogeneity involved in five controlled and prescribed burns in Mexico, and compare them to that experienced during a forest wildfire. It was found that, in different regions of the country, members of both Conafor and local brigades, academia, and organizations of civil society played different roles during the burns. It is necessary to consider the institutional diversity of the country and the importance of these institutions in order to reach agreements that may allow different actors to participate in the execution of prescribed and controlled burns.