The area of old-growth tropical forest worldwide has decreased by over 80 million hectares since 1990, and more than 100 million hectares of forest are affected by different drivers such as agricultural expansion and fires. Wildfires that destroy tropical forests are increasing every year. Between 2018 and 2019 Brazil, Bolivia and Peru were among the five countries with most forest loss due to fire. Nowadays there are millions of hectares of fire-affected forest ans savannas that are in the process of recovering. However, the speed and direction of recovery of such communities are still poorly understood. A better understanding of natural plant community recovery and resilience to fire will help design effective and efficient forest restoration plans.

Fire impacts depend on fire intensity and frequency and on local climatic conditions and global climate. To understand these responses, scientists have assessed short-term fire responses and long-term forest resilience by establishing permanent monitoring plots to.  In this symposium, we will assess resilience across different forest types and using different approaches. . This symposium will focus on the resilience and response to fire of tropical forest and savanna. We invite presentations of people working across different forest types including savannas, to show potential differences in their resilience.