Why protecting forests from wildfires is a security issue

“If we want a good future, we need to protect our ecosystems,” says Anela Stavrevska-Panajotova.  She is a forest engineer and head of the Department for Nature Protection at Shar Mountain National Park in North Macedonia. “Humanity can’t survive if forests can’t perform the three basic functions we depend on: economic, protective and ecological.”

Forests offer us resources we turn into products for fuelling livelihoods and economies. They also protect us from natural disasters like landslides and flash floods. With their unique and complex ecological systems, they clean the very air we breathe and the water we drink.

But forests are under threat by climate change and by people, and we need to defend them, says Anela. “Not protecting forests causes destruction that could lead to irreversible damage. Species would disappear. Natural processes would collapse. And people would face a rise in serious health and economic issues.”

Risks of wildfires

One of the major threats are wildfires. When forests burn, their fragile ecosystems and the natural resources we rely on for water, clean air and livelihoods get destroyed. If wildfires spread, they can scorch agricultural land and force people to flee their homes or even watch them burn to the ground. The toll on people’s lives can create deep instability and tensions that can turn into conflict.

When you combine wildfires with other environmental, social, economic and political pressures, the risk of tensions and conflicts amplifies, potentially jeopardizing livelihoods, whole communities, countries and even regions. These impacts are only intensified by climate change.

The points where all these pressures collide and amplify are climate security hotspots. Identifying, monitoring and addressing these hotspots is part of how the OSCE is helping communities and governments get ahead of tensions and conflicts and protect people’s safety and security.

Climate change and wildfires

Understanding what causes wildfires and how to prevent and stop them is part of diffusing the pressures they create. Often, climate change is considered the main cause of the increased frequency and intensity of wildfires, but Nikola Nikolov, who is a professor and expert on wildfires, says it isn’t that simple.

“Climate-related factors certainly create conditions that make wildfires more likely and more severe by, for example, drying out vegetation and turning it into flammable material, but climate change doesn’t directly cause wildfires,” he says. “The actual spark that ignites wildfires is almost always produced by human activity.”

Nikola leads the Regional Fire Monitoring Center for South Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus (RFMC), where they study, track and report on the impact of wildfires. Through his work at the Center and at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Nikola and his team have found that climate change is expected to keep amplifying the risk and impact of wildfires in the South-Eastern Europe region by causing rising temperatures, less rainfall and more frequent droughts. This creates drier conditions where one spark can be exponentially more potent and more likely to lead to uncontrollable wildfires.

“Because of the growing number and intensity of these fires, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get them under control, no matter how capable a government’s emergency services are,” says Nikola. “This makes clear that they can’t — and shouldn’t — deal with the wildfire problem on their own.”

By co-operating and combining local fire management strategies, governments and local authorities can build prevention and risk reduction strategies, respond to threats more effectively and identify problems earlier to help stop larger-scale disasters that might affect ecosystems, communities and the economy — locally, regionally or even worldwide.

“The more organizations, institutions and authorities get involved and fully understand the problem and its impact on our shared security, the quicker affected countries and regions will be able to work together and achieve a level of preparedness they can't reach alone,” Nikola says. “International organizations such as the OSCE can help fill gaps and provide support for co-operation.”

Real collaboration, real results

When co-operation works, it reaches real people on the ground like Anela and her team of forest rangers.

“The Shar Mountain National Park is a new institution. We're a young team striving to protect the area, but we lack resources,” Anela says. She explains how protective equipment for national parks is often not state funded, making tools provided through organizations like the OSCE crucial. “These donations help us match the equipment of teams in other nearby protected areas, allowing us to work together more efficiently and quickly to fight wildfires.”

Whether it’s creating effective policies, working together across borders or teaching everyday people how to prevent fires, co-operation is crucial to stopping wildfires and ensuring forests thrive. And when they thrive, nature has a way of showing us we’re on the right path.  

“We've had many very successful initiatives, and a moment we're particularly proud of is when we noticed a lynx on one of our cameras — for the first time ever in the Shar Mountain area,” says Anela. “This shows that we can and are making a real difference.”

Learn more about how the OSCE is strengthening responses to security risks from climate change.