Resurgent Species: Studying Post-Fire Recovery Based on Animal Experiences

How can we learn from animals to recover from catastrophic forest fires? In this presentation, Verónica Policarpo will address this question based on the ABIDE project, which examines post-fire recovery in three countries: Brazil, Portugal, and Australia. Policarpo will share aspects of her fieldwork in the Serra da Estrela region and discuss ways animals can inspire the creation of multispecies communities with greater ecological diversity, leading to more effective post-fire regeneration and resilience.

Policarpo is an anthropologist and a senior researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa), as well as the coordinator of the Human-Animal Studies Hub. She currently leads the interdisciplinary project "ERC ABIDE (ID 101043231): Animal ABidings: Recovering from Disasters in More-Than-Human Communities," investigating how multispecies communities, including nonhuman animals, recover from disasters such as forest fires. The project proposes an interdisciplinary approach and more-than-human governance to address climate crises.

The ERC ABIDE project, coordinated by Verónica Policarpo, is funded by the European Union's European Research Council.