Abstracts

Forest fires pose the most serious threat to the sustainability of forests in Turkey, as in many countries in the world. Every year thousands of hectares of forest areas disappear due to forest fires that occur for various reasons. Extinction of many genetic resources, deterioration of climate and water efficiency and acceleration of erosion and flood disasters are the major damages caused by these forest fires. In this study forest fires which appeared between 1997 – 2006 in Turkey were investigated. It was determined that 92% of the forest fires occured by anthropogenic reasons which include; 13% deliberateness, 58% inattention and negligence and 13% unknown reasons. The relationship between forest ecosystems and forest fires is considerably complex. Therefore, it is important to know and identify the effects of fires on forests from the point of view of technical forestry. This information provides a basis for foresty management, forestry policy, holistic forest management and forestry practices to take measures against forest fires. In this study the distribution of forest fire reasons between 1997 - 2006 in terms of their numbers and percentage, burned area, total number of forest fires, fire per hectar, total amount of burned forest area, and massive forest fires were analyzed. The forest fire data was collected from the regional forest directorates and each parameter of the incident was statistically analyzed. Furthermore, miscellaneous correlations such as fire-vegetation, fire-insect, fire-soil, fire-forest-fauna relations were reviewed through the field research. Although some operative measures are included in the forestry legislation it is not possible to say that they were fully put into practice. For this reason required preventative actions necessary to build a better forest management system were emphasized in this study. During the reforestration operations after forest fires rural development should be taken into account and the forest-fire-villagers triangle should be considered in sustainable forest resource planning. By paying attention to environmental ethics, proactive management understanding such as clean forest management should also be focused on the planning process. Key word: Forest Fires, Proactive Management, Ecosystem, Fire Database, Statistical Significance.

Note. Abstracts are published in author's edition

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