Lessons from Changes in Governance of Fire Management: The Ukuvuka Operation Firestop Campaign

Practical experience from the Ukuvuka Campaign, a short-term initiative in the governance of fire in the Cape Peninsula, Cape Town, South Africa offers insights that may have an application in enhancing ecosystem governance. Effective ecosystem governance requires many behaviour changes among citizens, both individual and institutional. Ukuvuka explored, facilitated and catalysed a number of these changes. The lessons learned are also used to look specifically at the interaction between government and society in ecosystem governance. Finally, the paper evaluates the model of ecosystem governance prepared as a basis for discussion at the international symposium on ecosystem governance held at KwaMaritane in October 2005.

Ukuvuka Operation Firestop Campaign was a four-year partnership set up to address the issue of fire in the Cape Peninsula. The initiative was triggered by a crisis caused by serious veld fires that burnt some 30% of Table Mountain National Park which Cape Town surrounds, and also damaged or destroyed some 60 homes and buildings. In addition, the campaign was challenged to focus some attention on the on-going problem of fires in informal settlements.

The governance lessons learned were that:

Setting up demonstration projects in a “safe space” can facilitate the behaviour changes required for governance of ecosystems by testing a new behaviour in a low-risk environment;

For institutional behaviour change, an internal champion is needed. However, the champion does not necessarily have to be very senior. Personal passion is potent;

For the behaviour changes needed for ecosystem governance to be systemic and sustainable, initiatives using the model of interest-based, rights-based and power-based approaches look promising;

Effective governance in an ecosystem needs diverse role players to work together. Drawing together such a wide range of participants, many of them often in conflict with one another, is challenging. Engaging reluctant participants may be more easily done in a short-term low-risk situation outside of the long-term institutions;

Use of the special-purpose vehicle of a “non-owned” body can be a tool for government to undertake the research and development that can assist it to deal with the current challenge to society of rapidly evolving and intricate policy problems; and

The experience gained from Ukuvuka indicated that science is a player with power unequal to that of government or society in the governance space. Science, or knowledge, may play a far more powerful and useful role in shaping the governance decision space by making itself available to all the role players.