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From Burning to Learning: Adaptive Governance to Wildfires in the North-West Province of South Africa

Abstract Wild fires are a recurring natural hazard on the African continent. Although wildfires are necessary for ecological management and regeneration of certain species, the risk posed transcends into impacts on sustainabledevelopment and the protection of livelihoods. Better management of wildfires becomes necessary because changeswithin the environment are becoming more complex. Social and ecological systems are intertwined and theresulting “complex or mega-system” needs to be able to learn and adapt to change. Research over a two-year periodin the North-West Province of South Africa considered the adaptation in management (systems), which took placebetween various role-players in multi-layered and polycentric institutions. Through a qualitative research design,the 2011 and 2012 wild fire seasons were investigated. The notion of adaptive governance was used as benchmarkto determine which transformative actions took place. The prime objective of the research is to what extent hasadaptive governance taken place during the 2011 and 2012 wild fire seasons in North-West Province, SouthAfrica? The research found that role-players were able to adapt their management systems to include aspects suchas information provision, dealing with conflict, induced legal compliance, provision of infrastructure and resources,and encouraged participation and adaptation. The paper recommends that emphasis on conflict management andresolution, applying nesting through various management levels, devised rules for wild fire management relevantwith the ecological conditions, and the implementation of accountability mechanisms to be put in place.