Update on the forest fire team’s activities in Latin America

As one of the first actions of the EU on Green Deal, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), together with the External Services in South America (EEAS Americas), launched a project currently funded under the EU Foreign Policy Instrument (FPI). 
The aim of this collaboration is to enhance the coordination of actions among EU and EEAS countries to stop and reverse the processes of deforestation and forest degradation, mitigating the impact wildfires have in the latter regions. Once one knows that it estimated that about 50 million ha of natural land — an area about the size of Spain—burn every year in the Amazon countries, it becomes easy to understand the importance of this collaboration. 

Under the “Support to wildfire management in Latin America and the Caribbean” project the EU has taken the first steps in setting up an Expert Group on Forest Fires in Latin America + Caribbean regions (EGFF LAC) — while promoting the transparent and up to date flow of information on wildfires through the JRC’s Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). 
This initiative follows from the successful establishment of the Expert Group on Forest Fires (EGFF) in the pan-European region. This group is now composed of 43 countries and supports the production of wildfire information in the region through the Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). 
In the LAC region, the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) is already providing standardised information on fire impacts and trends at country level. This data will help coordinated actions for fire prevention, enhanced preparedness and firefighting among countries.  
The 2nd meeting of the EGFF LAC will take place in Santiago de Chile, on July 28-29, 2022, with the participation of fire management agencies from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico and relevant international organizations such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization (ATCO). 
 
 
Link: https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/projects/support-wildfire-management-lac