As wildfires — increasingly driven by climate change — continue to escalate in severity, the nations of the Mekong River region are working to strengthen joint cooperation in wildfire management.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) announced that more than 30 wildfire management experts, along with government representatives from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, gathered in Siem Reap from July 1-3 for the three-day “AFFIRM Regional Workshop on Assuring the Future of Forest with Integrated Risk Management”.
“As wildfires grow more intense due to climate change, regional cooperation like this is key to protecting forests, communities and livelihoods,” explained the FAO.
The workshop was co-organised by the FAO, in cooperation with the Forestry Administration (FA) under the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Cambodia, and supported by the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO). The initiative aligned with the spirit of similar events held in South of Korea and was funded by the Korean government. It focused on reducing the wildfire risks caused by climate change, as well as enhancing forest resilience.
Participants shared national progress, explored innovative fire prevention practices—including Cambodia’s approaches in Siem Reap’s flooded forests—and discussed integrating fire management into climate strategies like Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans.
“Over three days, attendees reviewed progress toward the preparation of national review and analysis reports, appreciated country-level fire management strategies, exchanged insights on fire prevention and discussed the interlinkages between understanding the cause of fires,” said the FAO.
“This enabled fire prevention planning opportunities to be focused on in detail. A field visit to the flooded forest area surrounding Siem Reap highlighted Cambodia’s innovative fire prevention practices in sensitive ecosystems, in partnership with local communities,” it added.
Earlier, in May, AFoCO and the FA held a training workshop on wildfire protection and management using ICT-based technologies in Siem Reap province.
The May 5-6 two-day workshop aimed to strengthen the capacity and commitment of sub-national forestry officers, as well as share knowledge with other key stakeholders, including local authorities, community forest members and private forestry companies, on how to better prevent and control wildfires.
The workshop was one of the key activities of the regional “Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Adaptation to Climate Change and Forest Fire Management in the Mekong Region” (AFoCO/037/2023) project.
