Expert: Wildfires not unforeseeable, but result of climate change and governance failures
Europe's wildfire crisis is not an unforeseeable natural disaster but rather a consequence of climate change and ecological governance failures, according to an expert.
Eve Irvine of France 24 interviewed Alexander Held, Senior Expert of the Resilience Programme for Integrated Fire Management. Held argued that in Europe's wildfire crisis, the flames themselves are not the central problem.
He stated that fires are not unforeseeable natural disasters, as there have been decades of scientific warnings about the devastating effects of climate change. Held emphasized that the crisis reflects ecological and governance failures.
The expert concluded that the wildfire crisis presents an opportunity to fundamentally rethink our relationship with forests and landscapes. He called for moving beyond seeing fires as inevitable disasters and instead focusing on sustainable landscape management and climate change mitigation.
