Belief network assessment of fire management in East African savannas under socioeconomic and climate change.

Abstract

Fire regimes across East Africa's savanna conservation landscapes increasingly reflect interconnected ecological and biocultural breakdown, reinforcing systemic vulnerabilities. Yet colonially inherited fire suppression and exclusionary tenure arrangements continue to overlook the ecological value of pyrodiversity and the stewardship roles of Indigenous and local actors. This study presents a novel probabilistic systems model for evaluating seven predictive, exploratory, and normative fire management approaches across best-, intermediate-, and worst-case socioeconomic–climate futures. The SAV Belief Network (SAV BN) advances BN modelling by explicitly incorporating system complexity and future uncertainty through systemic feedbacks, bidirectional interactions, and high node complexity, supporting rigorous scenario analysis in data-limited contexts. Grounded in empirical data from the Tsavo Conservation Area, the model reflects relational epistemologies that emphasise human–nature interdependencies and place-based knowledge. No approach proved capable of simultaneously achieving wildfire mitigation, ecological integrity, and livelihood resilience. Most reduced wildfire risk and, under best-case trajectories, improved livelihoods; however, even highly normative approaches only slowed, rather than halted or reversed, ecological degradation. Fire suppression and carbon-oriented strategies focused on above-ground biomass accounting intensified ecological decline, particularly under inequitable futures, while locally conceptualised bottom-up strategies failed to confront entrenched colonial legacies and reproduced exclusionary power structures and degradation narratives. These findings highlight the need to reimagine fire regimes as products of multi-scalar, path-dependent dynamics shaped by institutional erosion, political–economic preferences, and contested land claims. Addressing this complexity requires moving beyond ‘integrated’ or ‘community-based’ framings towards historical institutional and environmental justice approaches that centre representation and equity.