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Bases para uma educação ambiental orientada para a diminuição do risco e aumento da resiliência das comunidades aos incêndios florestais em Portugal

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This thesis addresses the role of environmental education on wildfire risk reduction, focusing on two main intervenient on the rural world: Forest technicians and the rural population. A first step was to assess what was done in Portugal regarding environmental education for forest and education for risk reduction. Next, the risk perception and the constraints for preventive action by the population were evaluated in three Portuguese communities showing that all have a high risk perception. Furthermore, their motivation to carry out actions on the ground is influenced by factors, both individual (negative expectation of results) and collective ("my neighbours do not clean, so, I should I?"). These results allowed to identify guidelines assisting the population on reduction of risk behaviours, which are in the origin of many forest fires in Portugal, as well as to carry out actions in the field which, besides facilitating their preparedness towards fire, promote active and preventive forest management. Forest technicians intervene in the territory and their work assignments include the area of education and awareness. These factors led to a survey of their training needs, comparing them with the different professional activities and their university education at the level of bachelor's and master's degree. It was concluded that greatest discrepancies between what is important for the professional performance and the preparation of the technicians are in the human dimension of the forest management, namely on the potential for integrating the social component of the risk perception in to a global risk management. In conclusion, environmental education should also focus on getting the rural population to interact with local actors and finding joint solutions to promote preventive action against forest fires. KEYWORDS: Forest fires, environmental education, risk perception, rural population, forest technicians.
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... Wildlife mitigation measures with intervention in hazard, exposure, vulnerability and accumulated damage (Colaço, 2017;Plana and others, 2021). Data about the causes of wildfires are also incomplete, primarily due to the difficulties of assigning ignition to a specific event after the fact. ...
... While some people simply decide not to prepare, Paton and Wright (2008) found that a positive intention was insufficient to ensure action if people lacked help and support. Table 4 summarizes factors that inform personal decision-making about whether to prepare or to not prepare for wildfires as identified by Colaço (2017). ...
... Trust is another key factor that shapes public and personal willingness to support fire prevention agencies and others involved in fire management (Moritz and others, 2014). Trust is increased by information-sharing between DRR platforms, fire agencies and local networks, and within communities, when the information is focused on the effective steps individuals and communities can take to mitigate their risk (Paton, Frandsen and Tedim, 2012;Moritz and others, 2014;McCaffrey, 2015;Colaço, 2017). Open and easy access to reliable sources is essential if such interventions are to succeed. ...
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Chapter
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... The practice of utilizing fire for managing huddled agriculture and forestry leftovers with small burns (slash-burns) and for the renewal of pastures has been widely employed in rural areas and is still used today. However, these areas are becoming depopulated, remaining aged and often isolated populations [3][4][5]. In the 1950s, the rural areas in Portugal were characterized by a network of agricultural and woodland patches maintained by local farmers. ...
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... A report on the underlying reasons for the sizes of the 2017 fires (Guerreiro et al. 2017), indicated the lack of investment in fire prevention in all types of forest ownership over the past decades as one of the main reasons behind the tragedy. According to Colaço (2017), in the recent decades, the Portuguese Government has invested, on average, 2.7 times more for combatting wildfires as compared to prevention. Overall, fuel accumulation occurred (in quantity and continuity), suggesting that fuel management should become an integral part of forestry policy in the twentyfirst century (Marques et al. 2011;Fernandes et al. 2014), including the role that forests are expected to play in the future bio-economy (Verkerk et al. 2018). ...
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