There is an increasing evidence that global change is altering the dynamics of extreme wildfire events leading to increasing wildfire risk globally. This raises concerns on how to manage the growing exposed and vulnerable territories and communities and the implications for climate adaptation and recovery. Specially, how to manage, in justice terms, the transition from a current risk situation to a changing conditions. In particular, what is perceived as fair in terms of outcomes of and processes in wildfire risk management (WFRM) are key concerns. Building on the environmental justice literature, we identify and categorize along the disaster risk management cycle (prev-prep-resp-rec) crucial and generally applicable aspects of distributional, procedural and restorative justice. With increasing risk, more communities and socio-economic sectors are being affected by wildfires, escalating existing and new inequalities in WFRM. To address the additional challenges WFRM is facing in this increasingly complex governance setting, current WFRM approaches need to be reformed and new strategies require development. In line with the burgeoning concept of Just Transition in the energy transition and climate change mitigation domain, we argue in this perspective that policy and decision makers should proactively address distributive, procedural and restorative justice aspects within collaborative governance policy processes to successfully innovate integrative WFRM strategies.

Plana, E. (1), Serra, M. (1), Handmer, J. (2), Deubelli, T. (2), Linnerooth-Bayer, J.(2), Preinfalk, E. (2), Scolobig, A. (2), Schinko, T. (2), Berchtold, C. (3)
(1) Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC); (2) International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Population and Just Societies Program; (3) Fraunhofer Institute for Technological Trend Analysis INT

 
ID Abstract: 697