The disastrous forest and land fires and the haze that chokes southeast Asia every year could be controlled by legal and institutional reform, greater private-sector engagement in fire management and stronger incentives for rural communities to manage local fires.

These are the main conclusions of a three-year project funded by the European Commission (EC) that came to an mid-2003.

Based at CIFOR Headquarters in Bogor, "Project FireFight South East Asia" was operated jointly by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Much of its work has had a direct impact on fire management in the region and influenced policy in many countries. It has been widely recognized for its unique expertise in community involvement in fire management, the economics of fire use, and the legal aspects of forest fires.

Its work on the regulatory aspects of forest fires has shown that, while every country in South East Asia has some legal elements that are sound, none has a complete and effective legal framework for managing fires. As a result the Project undertook a workshop with government officials and legal experts in Indochina as the first step in developing a legal framework for best practice for fire-related laws and regulations. This will have an impact throughout the region.

In Indonesia, Project FireFight's in depth work examining the legal, regulatory and institutional landscape of forest and land fires has shown that the institutional structure of fire management must be streamlined to create clear responsibilities and accountability. Ideally a single agency should oversee and coordinate fire management.

The Project's work has also clearly demonstrated that communities have an extremely important role in managing and preventing local fires, with clear and secure land rights being the single strongest incentive for communities to engage in fire management. Ideally, the government and the private sector should support and encourage local communities in their efforts to manage fire locally. In reality however, the local community's role and their traditional knowledge in fire management is often not recognized.

Unlike large commercial companies, small subsistence-based communities have little choice other than fire if they wish to clear their land. Despite the availability of these alternatives, the project's work indicates that large companies use of fire for land clearing may be based more on habit than on business or ecological principles. But the Project found that for low volumes of biomass, companies could replace burning with other more cost-effective land clearing methods. As a result the private sector has taken considerable interest, resulting in joint activities aimed at stimulating the private sector to be more proactive in research and development and in implementing non-fire-based land-clearing methods.

Project FireFight has repeatedly that fire management must be holistic and balanced if it is to succeed. In particular, fire management should include all stakeholders and not - as is often the case - only the government, which often lacks the required skills and capacity. Greater government and private sector for the role local communities can play is crucial.

One of the biggest challenges for the Project was accessing basic but essential data. Far too often the basic details needed to define and understand the fire problem is just simply not collected. Relatively straightforward data such as the time, place, number and extent of fires can provide some of the fundamental information needed to find solutions.

The Project's success has seen WWF and IUCN link up with the Nature Conservancy (TNC) to develop integrated fire management approaches that will lead to long-term sustainable solutions. IUCN, assisted by WWF is currently implementing a joint ITTO-Swiss government funded pre-project. The pre-project work is looking continuing the IUCN-WWF fire initiative and extending it to a number of critical regions and countries, in particular West Africa, the Mekong Region and the Northern Andes.

During its lifetime, Project FireFight South East Asia produced over 10 publications and an innovative and attractive newsletter presenting readable, factual and concise knowledge on forest and fire management. All the materials were developed to address specific needs and situations identified through ongoing involvement with stakeholders in the region.

All of the Project's publications are available from the from http://www.pffsea.org, or from n.haase@cgiar.org