The majority of respondents in Chakari noted that wildland fires as a major problem and similar cases have been reported in many other new smallholder and resettlement farming areas of Zimbabwe which were established following the Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) (Phiri et al. 2011; EMA 2011). Though a small number of farmers did not indicate that wildland fires were a problem, differences in opinions and perceptions are expected. In Bolivia, Pinto and Alvarado (2011) observed a difference in perception of the problem of wildland fires were attributed to difference in land use practices. Cattle owners, thatch grass sellers and those practising bee keeping take wildland fire as a challenge because it affects their business most, while farmers who use fires for land preparation and as a source of nutrient (Goldammer 1993; Garren 1943; Jordan 1985; Saharjo 1995) will not view wildland fires as a challenge.
Most farmers in Chakari suggested that most wildland fires were caused by human errors, or negligence, while a small percent cited natural causes. Similar observations were also reported by Williams et al. (2011), who observed that only one event out of eight mega fires worldwide was attributed to electrical faults and none was due to lightning while seven were suspected to have been caused by human error. The results are also consistent with the sentiments by Huntley (1982) and Trollope (1982), who say that “in the savannas, lightning related fires generally occur during the dry season or early wet season, at intervals of 1–5 years”. West (1972) added that most dry-season wildland fires are ignited by man, but lightning becomes important at the beginning of the rains. Most key informants also agreed that human negligence and arson were the major causes of wildland fires in Chakari and in many other resettlement areas in Zimbabwe. The respondents concurred that though lightning caused wildland fires, the fires did spread because of the wet conditions or rains.
Hunting and bee harvesting were also cited as the major causes of wildland fires. In tandem with the current study Pinto and Alvarado (2011) in Bolivia found that the main causes of wildland fires were the hunters, followed by the burning of grasslands and slash, vandalism and unextinguished cigarettes. In Tanzania, Kilahama (2011) also reported that other major causes of wildland fires included game hunting, where fires were deliberately set to drive wild animals to intended destiny or to attract them, and also to allow re-growth in burnt areas for an easy catch.
Land clearance and preparation for cropping was cited among the top causes of wildland fires. These findings reaffirm the assertion by Goldammer (1993) that most wildland fires in smallholder farming areas occur during land preparation for agricultural purposes. A similar position was also reported by Kilahama (2011); Phiri et al. (2011) and EMA (2011). A report by EMA (2011) also showed that 80 % of the wildland fires occurred in A1 and A2 model resettlement farming areas where most of the new farmers used fires for land clearance.
Negligence was cited as the major cause of wildland fires in Chakari and the increase in the number of people settling the area has reportedly resulted in an increase in the number of fires. This is in agreement with the fire ignition model by Zumbrunnena et al. (2011) which suggested that as population increases, the cases of wildland fires also increases. In addition, arson was also cited as a major challenge. The local leaders reported that poverty contributed to arson as poor farmers without livestock sometimes deliberately set fire to fix livestock owners.
The observation that most wildland fires emanated from the roadsides was not peculiar to Chakari alone. Several studies (e.g. EMA 2011; Nyamadzawo et al. 2013) have reported that fire left at bus stops and fire from cigarettes stubs which are negligently thrown out from moving vehicles were major causes of wildland fires. A report by EMA (2011) showed that 60 % of all fires occur within 500 m from major roads and this suggested that road sides are the sources. In most cases vegetation along roadsides is trimmed to improve visibility along the roads. This vegetation provides ready fuel when fires are left unextinguished at bus stops, by long distance truck driver or from lit cigarettes stubs that are thrown from moving vehicles.
Though most wildland fires have far large negative impacts, fires also have positive impacts on the ecosystem. The positive impacts of wildland fires include, breaking seed dormancy and improving grazing. The WWF (2001); Nkomo and Sassi (2009) reported that wildland fires improve the growth of green grass which provides grazing for animals in the dry season, the fires also help with the removal of old and normally less palatable dry plant material, the control and reduction of bush encroachment, the stimulation of germination of some useful species of grass, and trees and also the elimination of animal parasites such as ticks. Seeds may be stimulated to germinate after fires (Sabiiti and Wein 1987), and many woody plants in savannas produce multiple coppice shoots to replace those lost or damaged through fires (Shackleton and Scholes 2000).
The negative impacts of wildland fires are huge and include the loss of property, crops, forest products and grazing, to name a few. Nyamadzawo et al. (2013) reported that in Zimbabwe acute impacts such as trauma are common among victims who their crops are destroyed by fires. In addition, the loss of shelter, personal goods through wildland fires has often left families traumatized, often families sleep in the open with no food supplies and proper water and sanitation facilities and this may result in stress, and can be a source of grief (Nyamadzawo et al. 2013). The overall impact of wildland fires is increased insecurity among households.
The study also showed that there is a major loss of natural resources, such thatching, and firewood are lost as a result of wildland fires. These observations are in agreement with the eco-feminist theory, which argue that women, girls and children are the most affected by wildland fires as firewood becomes scarce causing rural girls to travel long distance in search of firewood and thatching grass for thatching their huts.
The study also revealed that communities are willing to pay for the protection of the wildland and properties from wildland fires. Wildland fires which are occurring on an annual basis in Chakari, have caused loss in the ecosystem services and goods that are obtained by the community. However, the estimated annual income loss averaged $1 039 ha yr−1, and was lower than the estimate by Costanza et al. (1997) $2 007 ha yr−1 for the ecosystem services for tropical biome (1,900 × 106 ha globally).
Policing Wildland Fires
This study showed that policing of wildland fires is a major challenge in Chakari and this has been attributed to several reason among them lack of cooperation between members of the community and the policing officers. This is mainly because the community plays two roles; that is they are the perpetrators in most incidences of wildland fires outbreaks, whether intentionally or accidentally and at the same time they are the ones who are supposed to notify the policing agents, thus conflict of interest occurs when ones relative, neighbour, friend or child is the perpetrator. A study by Jackson (2007) on the effectiveness and limitations of policing wildland fires revealed that issues of conflict of interest were found to be crippling the criminal justice system. Societies have struggled to strike a balance between conserving biodiversity and protecting their communities and families from policing agents.
Corrupt policing practices were also cited as a challenge in policing wildland fires. Dube and Mafoko (2009) also echoed that it is partly because of corruption that the general public has grown to be reluctant to come forward to report on who or what caused a fire. Some respondents would argue the some officers would receive bribes so that they can set perpetrators of wildland fires free, as a result it does not make a difference whether the case is reported or not. Lack of appropriate punishment has been attributed to increasing wildland fires (Nyamadzawo et al. 2013). Leaf (2002) also shared the same sentiments when he said the current Roman-Dutch system is increasingly believed to be excessively lenient and consequently ineffective at controlling wildland fire crimes because it provides insufficient deterrence against offending.
The lack of adequate training and lack of resources was also cited as a challenge in policing wildland fires. The absence of a specialised national wildland fire department, makes policing a challenges as most of the officers are not trained to handle fire cases. There is also a general lack of transport to visit wildland fire sites and to carryout investigations. Police officers at time use public transport to carryout investigations. This can at times compromises their work, as they may the given transport by offenders. This has resulted in poor policing of wildland fires.
The complexity of fire crimes in courts has been a major challenge in policing wildland fires. Alvesalo (2002) in line with this says compared to a burglary or a murder, environmental crime is considered markedly complex. This is also evidenced in the regulatory framework where police and EMA can be notified after 7 days and suspects would have vanished. Prosecuting such a crime is complex, time consuming and expensive. For this reason Leaf (2002) and EMA (2013) asserts that regulatory agencies refer a very limited number of offenders to the courts for criminal charges. Similar findings were reported by Jackson and Fisher (2007) in Indonesia were no trial by courts took place following the severe fire outbreaks where 176 forest concessionaires, plantation companies and transmigration area developers were accused of using fire for land clearing activities. Though the authorities investigated 13 companies, only five where brought to court; however, no company was punished as their cases were dismissed due to the technical difficulties (Jackson and Fisher 2007).
The study also showed that local community leadership is concerned because their powers as custodians of environmental laws have been taken over by government policing agents (ZRP, forestry commission and EMA). A study conducted in Botswana by Dube (2013) on the challenges in policing fires indicated that the legal fraternal inhibit community participation in wildland fire management. A potential option is to integrate local leadership in wildland fire management, for example using Community-Based Fire Management (CBFiM). Myers (2006) in support says that community inclusive fire management strategy has a potential to be sustainable because it will be cost effective in the long run.
Other ways of improving policing of wildland fires
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i.
Increasing enforcement of regulations
The policing agents use the powers vested in them to prevent, detect and deter crime. For example, section 25 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act: Chapter 9:07 states that peace officers are empowered to intervene whenever they have good reason to believe that an offence has been (or, is about to be) committed. Therefore, the Police, EMA and forestry officers can be effective form of formal surveillance. During routine patrols regulatory agents can check compliance with the fire prevention, and suppression laws. However, Wilson (1975) argued against the relevance of police patrols, he asserts that the financial cost of increasing the number of police patrols far outweighs the localised and short term effects of crime rates. Furthermore according to Wilson (1975) the value of police arrest is dependent on what the criminal justice system does with the offender because once the matter is handed over to the courts, the courts cannot be controlled by the policing agents.
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Policing and Community participation
Engaging community in fire management has been proved to be worthwhile in both developed and developing countries and it has come to be known as Community-Based Fire Management (CBFiM) (Moore et al. 2002). Burrows et al. (1979) suggested that in reality for police to be effective, they need the support of the community, because for the police make any arrest, they will do so using information obtained from the public rather than catching the offender red-handed. Policing normally target to punish illegitimate use of fires, minimise errors and negligence as preventive measures (Laris and Wardell 2006). However, this has an effect of isolating the society by treating them as agents that causes wildland fires, than those that can prevent. Correct policing, should allowed community participation in veld fire management. For example, the community can enforce the construction of labour intensive fire guards better than the policing officers. Members of the community are also in a better position to identify culprits who caused wildland fires than officers based at stations kilometers away. This way, fire management becomes more inclined towards fire prevention and it also progressively becomes more of a community issue than a central Government issue (Magole 2009).
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Rapid response to wildland fires and fire fighting operations
Communities and the police should be prepared to fight fires all the time. Community warning mechanisms often come from the local people notifying the regulatory agents about wildland fire occurrence. Their response and policing preparedness rely on resource availability (Ganz and Moore 2002). However, in Zimbabwe, section 18 of the Environment Management Act, Chapter 20:27 requires that police and EMA should be notified of a fire outbreak within 7 days of occurrence of offence. The requirement has resulted in poor policing efforts, as there is no urgency in having the policing agents at the site of a fire crime and there is also a possibility that the suspect would have vanished after 7 days. In addition, evidence may be extremely difficult to gather in such situations. The delay in attending the scene of the crime and collecting evidence has made prosecuting such a crime very complex, time consuming and expensive and as a result only very limited number of offenders are taken to the courts for criminal charges (Leaf 2002).
Because of the challenge that are currently faced in policing wildland fires, it is suggested that the current system be integrated with the use of modern technology such as satellite data for planning fire prevention, prescribed burning and suppression. This will reduce centralisation of fire management and improve efficiency (Ganz and Moore 2002). However, such technology is often unavailable to rural populace in third world nations. In addition wildland fire management and policing should be governed by the economical principles, protecting lives and assets, as effective and efficient fire management programme requires a balance between the benefits society receives from the use of fire and the costs, damages or undesirable impacts caused by unwanted fire (Van Lierop 2011).