Wildfire and Causation: Climate Change or Disaster Policy?

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Firefighting in Utah.  Photo: US Army.

Firefighting in Utah.  Photo: US Army.

Wildfires are in the news again after portions of Idaho, Washington, and California were ravaged by high intensity fires this month.  Which means it's time for another reminder that climate change is to blame.  Here's The Guardian's Char Miller:

What [firefighters] have encountered on the firelines in the past few years is evidence that everything has changed as a result of global warming [...] Temperatures that spike above long-held norms, record-breaking low-humidity levels, multi-year droughts, tinder-dry vegetation and fierce winds are among the factors fueling these new, more massive infernos. The sooner that firefighting agencies, public officials, policymakers and citizens acknowledge the impact that climate change is having on the frequency, intensity, duration and behavior of fire, the sooner that they will begin to develop new responses to wildland fire in the US west."

Climate change is one of the factors.  But is it the most significant factor?  Perhaps more importantly, is it the factor that firefighters and land management agencies should be paying the most attention to?  Agencies and policymakers may not need to "develop new responses" if revisiting an old one is available instead.

Last year I wrote an article about disaster law in the US, in which I argued that the climate change debate is obscuring the fact that our current disaster laws - such as wildfire policy - aren't close to providing resilience to begin with (that article was published online this summer, see here).  While the focus today is on climate change, and how it exacerbates wildfire risk, there are other causal factors that wouldn't be as massively challenging to address.   First among those is a predilection for firefighting that, over the past hundred years or so, has been successful in putting out the small, low-intensity fires that were common in North America when the best defense was fire prevention or adaptation.  These small fires would clear vegetative growth and provide breathing room for forests.  After a century of firefighting, our forests are now choked with vegetation, providing the perfect conditions for the large, high-intensity fires we are seeing today.  Take a look at this chart showing trends in wildfires and acres burned:

Chart produced from data provided by the National Inter-Agency Fire Center.

Chart produced from data provided by the National Inter-Agency Fire Center.

A wildfire policy of firefighting has been successful in reducing fire frequency, but has resulted in an increase in acres burned.  Putting out small fires only builds up the fuel needed to create the big ones that firefighters are helpless to stop.  Firefighting agencies may not be able to solve climate change, but they can adjust their strategic priorities to favor more fire prevention and proscribed burns (policies that have been around for a while) instead of relying on firefighting quite so heavily.  Climate change may make things worse no matter what, but a second look at our disaster laws might show that a basic change in approach might go a long way toward building resilience.  

Wildfire in Yellowstone National Park.  Photo: National Park Service.

Wildfire in Yellowstone National Park.  Photo: National Park Service.

Haiti's Red Cross problem

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Photo: IFRC

Photo: IFRC

I'm in Haiti this week, splitting my time between Cap Haitien and Port au Prince.  Haiti has been in the news again lately, this time as a result of the NPR's investigation into the Red Cross' $500 million of disaster relief.  Much of the money has either not been spent, or was spent poorly or non-transparently:

NPR and ProPublica went in search of the nearly $500 million and found a string of poorly managed projects, questionable spending and dubious claims of success, according to a review of hundreds of pages of the charity's internal documents and emails, as well as interviews with a dozen current and former officials.
The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people, but the number of permanent homes the charity has built is six.

Some of the allegations aren't as severe as they might seem.  Sub-contracting projects to third party organizations is decried as wasteful spending, but remains standard when managing large sums of development aid, for example.  Still, $500 million is a lot of money that should have been accounted for and closely monitored to ensure results were being produced.  In April I wrote a three part series looking at disaster law and displacement in Haiti.  I argued that most shortcomings were the result of three factors: 1) weak building codes and a lack of enforcement; 2) an archaic land tenure scheme; and 3) a multitude of NGOs operating outside the parameters of a guiding legal framework.  The Red Cross controversy is emblematic of all three factors, but especially 2 and 3.  

From the Red Cross' perspective, building homes in Haiti is a vastly more difficult undertaking than one would assume, largely because potential homeowners have a hard time proving ownership over land.  NGOs are hesitant to invest when the beneficiaries are ambiguous.  The NPR report too quickly dismissed land rights:

The original plan was to build 700 new homes with living rooms and bathrooms. The Red Cross says it ran into problems acquiring land rights.  Their internal memos, however, show there were other serious problems, including multiple staffing changes and long bureaucratic delays. And then there was a period of almost a year when the whole project appears to have sat dormant.

Anyone who has worked in international development knows how frustrating it can be to wait for approvals from higher-ups, but acquiring land rights, or at least obtaining documentation sufficient to verify title to property, is more challenging than it's being given credit for.

On the other hand, the absence of a framework capable of governing foreign organizations and their various projects in Haiti meant Haitians were at risk of being misled.  NPR touts the ability of one organization to overcome land tenure schemes by employing mostly Haitians, whereas the Red Cross struggled to build a Haitian-led team.  In other instances, Red Cross staff couldn't speak French or Creole.  And their financial history is vague at best, with most records kept private.  Even the Prime Minister couldn't obtain financial documentation to verify the Red Cross' claims.  A robust legal framework for managing NGOs and other international organizations as they conduct development projects is obtainable, and can provide safeguards such as language requirements or financial transparency laws.  

While not immediately apparent, governance and the rule of law play a large role in development.  One email from the Red Cross suggests they had more money than they knew what to do with:

"We still are holding $20 million of contingency," she writes in an email. "Any ideas on how to spend the rest of this? (Besides the wonderful helicopter idea?) Can we fund Conrad's hospital? Or more to [Partners in Health]? Any more shelter projects?"

My suggestion: invest in public administration and the Haitian justice system.

Disaster Law and Displacement in Nepal, Ctd

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Fresh off its 7.8 magnitude earthquake on April 25, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal today about 80km to the east of the capital, Kathmandu.  The aftershock further exacerbates the displacement of populations who have been without meaningful shelter for weeks.

As detailed after the April 25 quake, building codes and construction standards have an enormous impact on the final death tolls.  In this case, it appears that many children were spared from the quake because the Nepalese government had wisely chosen to close what schools and colleges remained upright until May 14 in order to inspect their integrity.  While sustained school closures present short-term disruptions to youth development and education, the regulation in this case may have been worth the short-term costs.  

As if the April 25 quake wasn't enough, this is another reminder to rapidly developing countries in the region to get their building codes, construction standards, and disaster management plans in order.  

The Law of Disaster and Displacement in Haiti (Part III)

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The Law of Disaster and Displacement in Haiti (Part III)

The third in a three-part series on disaster and displacement in Haiti.  Read the rest of the series: Part I, Part II.

Five years since the earthquake, the number of people living in camps has dropped by over 90%.  Still, between 100,000 – 150,000 remain, and for those that returned to their homes, life remains difficult.  67% of households that were displaced by the earthquake are unable to meet their basic needs, compared to 43% of households that were not displaced.  Families that were displaced are more likely than non-displaced families to report that their living conditions have worsened, that they feel insecure, or that they have poor access to water, sanitation facilities, or healthcare.   Despite a reduction in the number of people living in camps, replacing what was lost during the earthquake and its aftermath remains a struggle. 

Of additional concern though is the prospect of another disaster, be it an earthquake or a hurricane.  The particular legal problems addressed above have received little attention, and what attention has been paid appears not to have made a significant change to realities on the ground. 

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The Law of Disaster and Displacement in Haiti (Part I)

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The Law of Disaster and Displacement in Haiti (Part I)

This is the first in a three-part series about disaster and displacement in Haiti.  Read the rest of the series: Part II, Part III. 

Port-au-Prince is Haiti’s capital and most populous city, with a metropolitan population of nearly 2.5 million.  On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck 25 kilometers southwest of the city.  An additional 52 aftershocks with a magnitude of at least 4.5 followed.  The island of Hispaniola – which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic – is no stranger to extreme natural events like earthquakes and tropical cyclones, but the 2010 earthquake was unprecedented in its destructive impact.   Death toll estimates range from 100,000 - 300,000.   Critical infrastructure designed to respond to disasters (e.g., hospitals, roads, seaports, airports, communication systems) was destroyed.   Many of the city's other buildings - including private residences, government institutions, and business centers - were likewise completely or functionally destroyed.  In sum, Haiti’s largest city and the epicenter of government and economic activity was ground to a halt.

While recovering and respectfully disposing of the deceased proved trying, responding to the needs of the living became a challenge of epic proportions.  The United States Agency for International Development estimates that 1.5 million people were displaced into some 1,500 camps.  Many others forced to leave their homes sought refuge with family in other parts of the country.  And by almost all accounts, the response to displacement was inadequate.  A year after the earthquake 500,000 Haitians were still living in camps, and although the rough official number in 2014 was ‘only’ 100,000, the effect of displacement is persistent and hard to fully discern in a city where camps can be hard to distinguish from slums.  A 2014 survey found that 74% of families forced to leave their homes in 2010 still consider themselves displaced, even though they no longer live in displacement camps.   Meanwhile, life in the camps was ill-conceived: many had no electricity, clean water, sanitation facilities, or protection from the elements.  Sexual, domestic, and gang violence was common, and a cholera outbreak (likely introduced by foreign aid workers) exacerbated a fragile public health environment. 

The inadequacy of the response to displacement has many intertwined roots, the totality of which is still being uncovered.  One of the most distressing concerns for Haiti and the international community, however, was (and continues to be) the weak legal framework designed to mitigate and respond to extreme natural events. 

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