Journal of Ethnobiology 33(1):86-104. 2013
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-33.1.86
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2993/0278-0771-33.1.86
Errakina: Pastoral Fire Use and Landscape Memory In the Basque Region of the French Western Pyrenees
Michael R. Coughlan
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602 ( Coughlan@uga.
Abstract
People
in the French Western Pyrenees have used fire for millennia in order to
shape and manage landscapes. This history has left cultural and
ecological legacies that both reflect and ensure the relative
persistence of landscape patterns and processes. In this paper I draw on
ethnographic research, ethnohistorical evidence, and Bayesian spatial
analyses of historical fire use locations and land use maps to shed some
light on human-fire-landscape dynamics in the Pyrenees for the years
1830 to 2011. I show how cultural and ecological legacies reflect a
self-organized fire management regime that emerges from fire use driven
by the production goals of individual households. I frame the
self-organizing dynamic inherent in Pyrenean pastoral fire use as
“landscape memory.” This conclusion has implications for the future
direction of fire-related conservation policy for the Pyrenees and for
analogous systems characterized by self-organized land management
regimes.
Resumen
Dans
les Pyrénées occidentales françaises, le feu est utilisé depuis des
millénaires pour la gestion des paysages. Cette histoire a laissé un
héritage culturel et écologique qui se reflète dans les paysages actuels
et qui garantit leur persistance relative. Dans cet article, je
m'appuie sur des recherches ethnographiques et ethnohistoriques, sur des
analyses spatiales bayésiennes du feu pastoral ainsi que sur des cartes
d'usages des sols pour éclairer les relations entre anthropisation, feu
et paysage dans les Pyrénées entre 1830 et 2011. Je démontre comment
cet héritage culturel et écologique reflète un régime de feu auto-géré.
Ce régime se caractérise par une utilisation du feu motivée par les
objectifs de production des fermes. Je montre comment cette auto-gestion
inhérente à la pratique du feu pastoral a contribué à la formation
d'une « mémoire du paysage » dans les Pyrénées. Cette conclusion a des
implications pour l'orientation future des politiques de conservation
associées au feu dans les Pyrénées, ainsi que pour d'autres systèmes
également caractérisés par des régimes auto-gérés.
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Cited by
Michael R. Coughlan. (2014) Farmers, flames, and forests: Historical ecology of pastoral fire use and landscape change in the French Western Pyrenees, 1830–2011. Forest Ecology and Management 312, 55-66.Online publication date: 1-Jan-2014.
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