Using Participatory Mapping to Foster Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction in Forest Fire-Prone Areas: The Case of Monchique in Portugal

Maria Partidário; Guilherme Saad; Margarida B. Monteiro; Joana Dias; Rute Martins; Isabel Loupa Ramos; Henrique Ribeiro; et al

Key information

Authors:

Maria Partidário; Guilherme Saad (Guilherme Saad Ximenes); Margarida B. Monteiro; Joana Dias (Joana Fernandes Dias); Rute Martins; Isabel Loupa Ramos; Henrique Ribeiro; et al

Published in

09/22/2022

Abstract

Local knowledge and communities' active role in disaster risk areas are recognized in the liter-ature as key conditions to better understand risks, enhance adaptive capacities and foster local resilience. A participatory action research project in forest fire-prone areas in Monchique, Por-tugal, is aligned with the literature and adopts participatory mapping as a method that can bring evidence to the importance of local knowledge and communities’ agency. In the BRIDGE Project, different types of knowledge are integrated, triggering local/collective agency and fostering a forest fire community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) approach. An innovation labora-tory (InnoLab) provides the space for dialogue and knowledge sharing for different actors that manage forest territories. In the InnoLab, participatory mapping is used as a method to engage landowners where risk factors and local vulnerabilities were identified. Their active engage-ment enabled a collective perception in the assessment of vulnerability and led to the identifica-tion of strategic measures for risk reduction. This paper shares the process and outcomes of this participatory mapping, highlighting the benefits of a community approach and the importance of local knowledge and practices as recognized in the literature. It also reveals how the active role of local stakeholders can help drive a CBDRR process