Topic:
Country: Estonia
Delegate Name: Aaron Purrenhage
DATE: 11/20/2021
SUBMITTED TO: United Nations Developmental Programme
FROM: the Republic of Estonia
TOPIC: Fire Prevention and Response.
In a world of increasing temperatures, increasing droughts, and increasing scarcity of resources, the threats of fire and all the it consumes has become ever more real, and ever more devastating. The world is seeing more and more droughts, droughts that sap the water from rivers and from the pipes of fire fighters attempting to keep back the wildfires from torching our communities. During 2022 millions of acres had been burned by wildfires in the American State of California alone, which saw over 50,000 wildfire burn during that year. Fire is an all consuming danger that results in a scorched earth, but as well as sever air pollution that leaves whole regions nearly uninhabitable. These wildfire release large amounts of carbon dioxide, black carbon,, and ozone precursors into the atmosphere which can add to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. For less-developed nations working to prevent fires can prove to be nearly impossible, since these nations are often already dealing with other pressing issues that stretch their governmental units thin. The United Nations Development Program understand that fire prevention and response is a pressing issues that will only become more important to pay attention to as the fires across the world continue to worsen.
In the nation of Estonia, wildfires prove to be a pressing issue despite their our efforts to alleviate these problems. Increasing funding in our fire response agencies like fire department and units who fight fires in more rural and forested areas have been greatly beneficial to our nations efforts to combat wildfires and their destruction. Our Rescue board works in our nation to warn about fires, to rescue those afflicted and to fight the fires from burning. During this year of 2021 so far,626 forest and landscape fires have occurred in our nation of Estonia. Our patrols monitor our landscape to help spot fires and to predict where and when they might occur.
With all the damage these fires are doing to nations over the world, the United Nations Environment Programme needs to work diligently to set out a plan to address and prevent these fires from destroying so much of our communities. Fires do naturally happen, but the vast majority of these fires volatility have been exasperated by climate change, and rising temperatures. We see droughts in regions like the American West that cause wildfires to spread more rapidly. Estonia believe that the UNEP can help nations and their people work to stop these fires by educating the public masses on ways to prevent fires from happening, and to implement designs in infrastructure and building that can help prevent fires from spreading. Proper forest management is a vital tool in preventing forest fires from becoming too severe. Removing underbrush that acts like kindling can drastically help reduce the fuel of these flames. Prescribed burns are also a useful too to prevent wildfires from growing out of control. Estonia is committed to working with other nations and the global community to help aid areas affected by fire, and to help prevent their damage from occurring.
Sources Cited:
https://news.err.ee/1608281529/high-risk-fire-hazard-declared-for-four-estonian-counties-starting-sunday
https://www.rescue.ee/en
https://ctif.org/country-member/estonia
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjS743b2bL0AhXEkIkEHaIHB00QFnoECAMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgfmc.online%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F19-IFFN-30-Estonia-2.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3lFQx-vsJIvNFCNqdvWuWO
