Dr. Ramesh Glückler

Past week marked the inaugural BeNeLux Geography Conference in Leuven, Belgium. By convening a dedicated session "Learning from the past: Landscape dynamics and relationships to human activity throughout the Holocene", I aimed at bringing a long-term dimension to this exciting new community-building effort. I really appreciated the diverse range of perspectives geography has in store. That being said, I'd like to encourage more of my fellow physical geographers to join and mingle with the experts from human geography - they don't bite! See you in Groningen 2028! 

In this news report for the Horizon Europe project "Past to Future", I summarize recent progress with evaluating Holocene wildfire histories across the boreal zone using a new compilation of charcoal data. Thanks to all contributors of this ongoing research project - paleoecology experts from the Netherlands, Czechia, Estonia, Canada, and the US! Read the news post on the Past to Future website and find our more detailed project report here. 

Boreal forests of eastern Siberia are often believed to be historically unmanaged. But are they really? Our new study in Communications Earth & Environment (see screenshot below) uses both paleoecological fire reconstructions and simulations with a fire-vegetation model to demonstrate that humans likely affected fire regimes earlier than previously expected. Our findings have relevance for modern fire management policies: They suggest that Indigenous practices may have successfully reduced fueld loads and kept severe wildfires at distance from settlements already hundreds of years ago. These practices involved cultural burning, which is today prohibited. Find the full study here:

The Alfred Wegener Institute published a short press release on our new research (available in German and English): https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press/single-view/default-f81a6957346c019ccaf4017e094e038c.html

In addition, Izabella Baisheva and I wrote a "Behind the Paper" blog post over at the Springer Nature Research Communities, highlighting the effort that goes into paleoecological fire reconstructions. From fieldwork to publication, what is summarized in few sentences of a methods section requires careful organization, attention to detail, and a fair share of patience. Read the full post here:  https://communities.springernature.com/posts/uncovering-past-wildfire-dynamics-in-eastern-siberia-from-fieldwork-to-publication