Blazing the trail: Social innovation supporting wildfire-resilient territories in Catalonia (Spain)

• Published in: Forest policy and economics Vol. 138; p. 102719
• Main Authors: Rodríguez Fernández-Blanco, Carmen, Górriz-Mifsud, Elena, Prokofieva, Irina, Muys, Bart, Parra, Constanza
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.05.2022; Elsevier Science Ltd; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: ADF; Bottom-linked social innovation; Building management; Ecological effects; Environmental changes; Fire fighting; Grass roots movement; Innovations; Local communities; Natural disturbance; Political power; Resilience; Social change; Social innovation; Socio-ecological resilience; Wildfire; Wildfires; Wildfire; ADF; Socio-ecological resilience; Social innovation; Bottom-linked social innovation
• ISSN: 1389-9341; 1872-7050
• DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102719

Mediterranean territories have co-evolved and been shaped by fire throughout history. However, global environmental change conditions are increasing the size, intensity and severity of wildfires, which have gone from a regular natural disturbance to a serious threat for civil protection, surpassing firefighting capacities. Therefore, building resilience in fire-prone territories is an increasingly relevant policy and management objective. However, the notion of resilience has been criticized for paying insufficient attention to key social issues such as socio-political dynamics, power imbalances and societal change. At the same time, social science contributions to wildfire research are still rather limited. In this paper, we bridge social innovation theory to resilience theory in order to create a territorially embedded and socially sensitive framework for assessing socio-ecological resilience. From this perspective, we then examine how Forest Defence Groups (ADFs, by their Catalan acronym) have evolved from grassroots, bottom-up initiatives to well-established bottom-linked institutions and we evaluate their contributions to socio-ecological resilience in the territories where they operate. Our results show that ADFs contribute in several aspects to socio-ecological resilience and that the pave the way for opening up spaces of dialogue and collaboration through which local communities can engage with the issues that directly affect them, such as wildfires. •Social innovation processes have the potential to contribute to socio-ecological resilience to wildfires.•Social innovation theory provides resilience thinking with a deeper socio-political perspective for analysing dynamics within SESs•Social innovation theory has the potential to contribute to more situated and critical research in forestry and wildfires.•Bottom-linked, territorially embedded initiatives hold great potential for building socio-ecological resilience.