A Letter of Intent coordinated by EII was signed during the 59th Agropec and brings together public institutions, the private sector, communities, and partner organizations around an integrated strategy for preventing and fighting forest fires

Paragominas, in southeastern Pará, has taken another step toward strengthening environmental governance and fire management in the municipality. During the 59th Agropec, on August 14, a Letter of Intent was signed for the creation and structuring of the Municipal Committee for Integrated Fire Management, bringing together various institutions and sectors operating in the region.

The Letter of Intent brings together the Earth Innovation Institute, the Paragominas City Government—through the Municipal Secretariat for Green Initiatives and the Environment—the Pará State Secretariat for the Environment, Climate, and Sustainability (SEMAS-PA), the Paragominas Rural Communities Forum, CIRAD, the Paragominas Rural Producers’ Union, the Municipal Secretariat of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, and Civil Defense. The institutions expressed their commitment to collaborate technically and institutionally in the planning, implementation, and monitoring of these actions.

According to the Letter of Intent, the Committee is to function as a permanent, inclusive, consultative, proactive, coordinating, and strategic body, contributing to the integration of different public policies, knowledge, and territorial instruments.

The initiative is part of the Innovative Municipalities Program: Fire, Production, and Forest, led by the Earth Innovation Institute (EII), and seeks to strengthen coordination among government, the productive sector, rural communities, civil society, and technical institutions to develop integrated strategies for prevention, preparedness, monitoring, and response to forest fires.

Integration to Strengthen Fire Management

For Dominique Castanheira, Municipal Secretary of Green Initiatives and the Environment in Paragominas, the creation of the Committee represents an opportunity to integrate different approaches and strengthen the municipality’s capacity to deal with forest fires.

“The Integrated Fire Management Committee is of immense importance within the municipality. It brings together people with different approaches to provide the municipality with legal certainty—not only legal certainty, but also a coordinated approach formed through the integration of various stakeholders focused on fire prevention and suppression.”

According to Dominique, the signing also marks a moment of unity among the institutions operating in the region. “Today we are witnessing the signing of the municipality’s Letter of Intent, bringing together the State Department of the Environment, the Department of Agriculture, Civil Defense, and the Earth Innovation Institute—which is a key partner of ours—as well as municipal officials, including representatives from the State Department of the Environment, which is bringing the state fire brigade to the municipality of Paragominas. We recognize that this is an important moment, a moment of unity, that values and strengthens integrated landscape management.”

The proposal is aligned with the Integrated Landscape Management approach, which recognizes the need to coordinate rural development, environmental conservation, land-use planning, and actions for climate change protection and adaptation.

In this context, Integrated Fire Management (MIF) is considered a foundational strategy, involving prevention, preparedness, the planned and legally authorized use of fire, monitoring, response to wildfires, and the restoration of affected areas.

A Milestone for Paragominas

For Warley Rodrigues, EII’s Integrated Fire Management coordinator, the signing represents a milestone in the development of a collective strategy for fire management in the municipality.

“It’s a unique moment, because it’s yet another milestone in the management of Paragominas: the memorandum of understanding for the creation of the Paragominas Integrated Fire Management Committee. This committee is a collegiate body of institutions that already operate in various areas of the landscape, and we want to bring these institutions together to decide how fire use will be managed within the territory of Paragominas.”

For Warley, this coordination can directly contribute to combating forest fires in the municipality. “This is an important milestone in management because it allows us to move toward reducing forest fires here in Paragominas.”

The creation of the Committee therefore seeks to transform the individual actions of these institutions into a coordinated strategy, expanding the municipality’s planning and response capacity and strengthening the participation of the various stakeholders who live and work in the area.

For the EII, the development of this governance structure represents yet another step forward in the implementation of the “Innovative Municipalities” initiative, which seeks to support municipalities in developing integrated solutions to challenges related to fire, production, and forest conservation.