Fire, bird conservation and land management in the North-Mediterranean area

Despite the common perception of wild fires as a major ecological catastrophe, their effects on the avifauna are not uniquely negative. Concerning the protection of the most typically Mediterranean bird species in Southern France, the progressive disappearance of the herbaceous formations from the landscape might represent in the future a more serious problem. The maintenance of these formations (for example by prescribed burning), facilitating the fight against large wild fires, would reconcile the exigences of avifauna and forest protection in Mediterranean fire-prone areas.