Opening talk for UBC China Study Forum, China& and CESS by Dr. Jack Hayes (Associate Professor of Chinese History and Environmental History in Asian Studies and History Faculty at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, CCR Associate.)
This presentation analyzes aspects of fire fighting and fire management in Chinese and Canadian forest ecosystems. In examining both natural systems (shrubs and trees that burn and how they are changing) and human systems (causes of fires, technologies and policies to mitigate them in changing environments), we examine how the understanding and “science” of fire is changing as summer warming trends and fire incidences go up in severity and costs, as well as how changing plant ecosystems are adding fuel to the fire(s). This will include examples both historical (fire fighting brigades, plant ecosystems) and contemporary (policy & technologies) in China and Canada’s boreal and temperate forest ecoregions.
