The Goat-Cow Is Spain's Wildfire-Fighting Secret Weapon

In an effort to rebuild after Nepal’s devastating 2015 earthquake, Earthbags have become a growing method of sustainable, affordable construction. These bags are carefully filled with soil, and stacked on one another to build structures like homes and schools. Across the country, officials, local residents, and non-profits like Good Earth Nepal have embraced the method in a grassroots push to rebuild the country for and by themselves.

North Bay Jobs With Justice teaches immigrant and Indigenous farmworkers how to restore the land’s ecological health and mitigate impacts of climate change and disasters like wildfires through training efforts and ancestral knowledge. The group has also helped workers organize for respect, safer conditions and fair pay.

After once again being granted rights to their native land, the Martu people are bringing back the bioregenerative technique of small-scale land burning. In the past century, wildfires have ravaged the areas these people call home and has lead to the loss of over 18 species of animal. They hope that imparting this traditional method of ecological maintenance will decrease the number of wildfires and in many cases, the resulting extinction of other animal species.

The Community Brigade program is a partnership with the LA County Fire Department that works to bolster community wildfire preparation and response by training volunteers on how to fight against and recover from wildfires, most recently proving to be extremely effective against the Palisades fires and during recovery efforts.

Advocates and ecological consultants are popularizing flow control devices and tactics as a solution to beaver conflicts. A few are limiting beavers’ damming behavior and reducing beavers impacts on human infrastructure.

Transformation, an initiative aiming to end factory farming, is helping chicken farmers who are in debt and looking to transition out of the industry convert their barns into greenhouses.

The most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s modern history started as a prescribed burn managed by the United States Forest Service. These fires are meticulously planned and executed to remove flora that increases the risk of extreme wildfires, and the vast majority of them go as planned. The Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak Fire did not, leaving officials and locals to assess what went wrong and rebuild the impacted communities.

The Power of Mama is an all-female firefighting unit that protects the health and livelihoods of the local community and environment by working with village authorities to educate local farmers on safe practices to prevent wildfires and preserve the ecosystem. The unit formed in 2022 with just 44 volunteers, but has since grown to 92 members aged 19 to 60 across six villages.

New Mexico law would allow wildfire victims to seek compensation for noneconomic damages. But the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency said the federal law that established a compensation fund for a wildfire accidentally started by the U.S. Forest Service limits payments to tangible losses. Now, victims are suing the agency, claiming it improperly denied them compensation that they need to rebuild.

The Small Mammal Conservation Organization is preventing wildfires by educating farmers in Cross River, Nigeria, about the dangers of burning the remaining crop waste in their fields after the harvest. The organization runs weather stations that inform communities about daily fire risks and employs “forest guardians” in every community to patrol farmlands and mitigate wildfire risk.