London Climate Action Week 2025

Integrated Strategies for Wildfire Resilience & Recovery in Climate, Biodiversity, Land & Health.

About this Event

Wildfire is an essential ecological process in many ecosystems and has played a prominent role in the evolution of biodiversity. In response to rapid global change, however, extreme wildfires are increasing and natural fire regimes are being altered, driving large-scale species extinctions, and compounding climate change impacts. As the wildfire crisis accelerates, there is an urgent need for globally-coordinated trans-disciplinary research to understand the causes and consequences of changing wildfire patterns.

The Global Wildfire Collective (GWC), an initiative led by the Conservation Biology Institute, facilitates collaboration among research scientists, national policymakers, local communities, firefighting agencies and industry partners. The GWC is focused on advancing wildfire research, knowledge sharing, and capacity building to address the climate, biodiversity and land crises at local, regional, and global scales. The GWC is collaborating with other wildfire resilience initiatives to increase complementarity among common efforts.

Since 1992, Parties to the UN Rio Conventions on Climate, Biodiversity and Desertification have been engaged in global efforts to reduce global carbon emissions, advance biodiversity-positive policies, and create sustainable land management practices. Yet, while wildfire poses serious challenges for each of these conventions, it has traditionally been studied in disciplinary silos without accounting for the critical interconnections among human and ecological systems.

To increase policy coherence, a growing number of Parties to these conventions are urging the creation of a UN Joint Work Programme on Wildfire Resilience and Recovery, to help address the growing threat of wildfire to climate, biodiversity, land use and health. This event described wildfire impacts in each of these areas and explored collaborative approaches to accelerate action on resilience and recovery.

Event Objectives
– Establish common understanding of wildfire resilience and recovery needs
– Strengthen interactions among sectors and geographies impacted by wildfire
– Build support for a UN Joint Work Programme on Wildfire Resilience & Recovery

Event Recording

Courtesy of Leverhulme Centre on Wildfire, Environment and Society