Chau Pham
The deciduous dipterocarp forests of Mainland Southeast Asia, although known officially as forests, are savanna ecosystems that are fire-dependent. Much of the fire in these landscapes is managed by humans. Fire suppression is the norm in some places, while in others, anthropogenic burning has led to the encroachment of the savanna into other moist forests.
A prescribed fire set by park rangers in the early dry season, January 2025. ©Chau Pham.
Creating an appropriate fire management plan requires understanding the natural history of a landscape and what that landscape might look like under different fire regimes. My research will combine radiocarbon dating of charcoal, semi-structured interviews, and archival records to reconstruct fire–vegetation dynamics of the savanna of Yok Đôn National Park, located in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Header image: Charcoal fragments (black) sieved from a soil sample. ©Chau Pham.