How Mexico is Taming its Wildfires
Mexico grapples with severe droughts and wildfires. Integrated fire management emerges as a solution in regions like Los Tuxtlas. A shift from fire suppression to controlled management is crucial for ecosystem preservation and reducing economic losses.
In Mexico, there is a growing trend towards longer and more severe drought seasons, which generate conditions conducive to forest fires, which have affected a larger area recently. However, in places such as the Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve, Veracruz, and El Ocote, Chiapas, strategies such as integrated fire management have managed to keep the conflagrations smaller and with minimal impacts for approximately two decades.
Christoph Neger, a researcher at the Academic Unit of Territorial Studies in Yucatan, of the UNAM Geography Institute, explained: In these areas, it has been possible to maintain certain limits that do not significantly impact biodiversity; it has been possible that, since the last major events, recorded in 2003, these ecosystems have recovered.
