The dialogue brought together Indigenous Peoples, local communities, policymakers, and practitioners to continue a vital conversation that began in the Amazon on how to strengthen community-led responses and embed these in integrated landscape-level policy, practice and financing.

We were proud to co-host this event alongside RECOFTC and Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet), and to stand with our partners from Forest Foundation Philippines and Tropenbos Indonesia, as well as government representatives from Indonesia.

What stood out?

• Although suppression dominates fire management in Southeast Asia, even more than in the Amazon. This cannot stand alone. More holistic strategies are urgently needed, especially around land use planning and early action.
• Powerful examples of women leading fire responses, including Thailand’s national fire training center, where women are at the helm of professional rapid response teams.
• Fire monitoring technologies - from smoke towers to GPS and drones - are advancing, offering hope for faster detection and smarter action.
• The strong link between wildfire, haze, and public health opens a door for new funding streams beyond the hashtag#climate and hashtag#forestry sectors.
• A recurring theme: local communities often cannot depend on professional fire brigades. This gap underscores the need for localized capacity, grounded in traditional knowledge and enabled by training and tools. This is in addition to the voluntary work that community members carry out to suppress the fire.
• There’s an urgent need to shift financing from emergency response to long-term fire prevention, especially as budgets shrink and risks rise.

The dialogue left us inspired by the readiness, resilience, and leadership of community members. But also with a clear call to action: support their efforts, build their capacity, foster collaboration and connections, and ensure their voices shape the regional and global fire agenda.

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Contact

To learn more about our initiatives or to collaborate with us, please contact Rosalien Jezeer at rosalien.jezeer@tropenbos.org or Humberto Gomez at humberto.gomez@tropenbos.org