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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
In their paper entitled “Wildfires as an ecosystem
service”, Pausas and Keeley (2019)
summarize the benefits generated by – as
well as the evolutionary and socioecological
importance of – wildfires for humankind.
Although we recognize the importance of
wildfires in such a context, we argue that
presenting wildfire per se as an ecosystem
service is conceptually incorrect and can be
misleading for policy makers and resource
managers. Throughout their paper, the
authors repeatedly refer to (wild)fire as a
potential provider of multiple ecosystem
services (and not as an ecosystem service
itself, as indicated in their article’s title). We
believe that this is more than a dispute over
semantics, for such a contradiction could
lead to misperceptions about the definition
of the term “
ecosystem services”, which is
especially concerning in light of its real-world
applications to fire management.
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Pedagogical Context
Citation
Sil, Ângelo Filipe dos Reis Pereira e Cortinhas; Azevedo, João; Fernandes, Paulo M.; Regos, Adrián; Vaz, Ana Sofia; Honrado, João (2019). (Wild)fire is not an ecosystem service. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. ISSN 1540-9295. p. 429-430