The COVID-19 pandemic led to many European countries imposing lockdown measures and limiting people’s movement during spring 2020. During the summer 2020, these strict lockdown measures were gradually lifted while in autumn 2020, local restrictions started to be re-introduced as a second wave emerged. After initial restrictions on visitors accessing many Nature Protected Areas (PAs) in Europe, management authorities have had to introduce measures so that all users can safely visit these protected landscapes. In this paper, we examine the challenges that emerged due to COVID-19 for PAs and their deeper causes. By considering the impact on and response of 14 popular European National and Nature Parks, we propose tentative longer-term solutions going beyond the current short-term measures that have been implemented. The most important challenges identified in our study were overcrowding, a new profile of visitors, problematic behavior, and conflicts between different user groups. A number of new measures have been introduced to tackle these challenges including information campaigns, traffic management, and establishing one-way systems on trail paths. However, measures to safeguard public health are often in conflict with other PA management measures aiming to minimize disturbance of wildlife and ecosystems. We highlight three areas in which management of PAs can learn from the experience of this pandemic: managing visitor numbers in order to avoid overcrowding through careful spatial planning, introducing educational campaigns, particularly targeting a new profile of visitors, and promoting sustainable tourism models, which do not rely on large visitor numbers.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

In modern conditions of the existence of socio-economic systems, the urgent problem is the formation of sustainable development of regions. To study the formation of sustainable development, the authors took two components, such as food security of the region and environmental innovation, an orientation towards a green economy. A comparative analysis of the theoretical aspects of the formation of food security in the works of domestic and foreign scientists is carried out. A study of the Global Food Security Index for 113 countries is presented, using the methods of statistical analysis and analytical grouping, six leading countries in terms of food security are identified. The largest group, accounting for 22.12% of the total population, is made up of countries in the 71.12–78.21 range of the Food Security Index. The grouping of countries was carried out according to the parameter “Natural resources and sustainability”, which showed that the largest group, consisting of 38 countries or 33.62%, is in the range of 44.0-49.9, only 10 countries fell within the borders with the minimum the level of natural resources and sustainability from 32.2 to 38.1. The analysis made it possible to compile a rating and note the presence of the greatest food security problems in African countries. It is concluded that the transition to environmentally friendly ways of running the economy leads to high productivity of natural resources.

No abstract