The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus, initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness.
Global conservation efforts have traditionally focused on biodiversity hotspots and other priority landscapes. However, large areas outside priority sites have high conservation value and are referred to as neglected landscapes. The Eastern Ghats of India is an unexplored forest landscape of high conservation value with several endemic and threatened species reported, and is also home to many indigenous forest-dwelling communities. However, it remains a neglected area for conservation and only 3.53% of this landscape is protected. Here, we examine the effectiveness of protected areas in neglected landscapes in preventing forest degradation, and how community perceptions can be used to understand satellite-based landscape change analyses at village level. This study was conducted in Papikonda National park (PNP) and its unprotected buffers in India's Eastern Ghats. Forest degradation was higher in the buffer (32%) than inside PNP (12%) between 1991 and 2014. Communities attributed shifting cultivation, plantations and overextraction of forest resources as being the major drivers of forest degradation. Community observations of change were not significantly correlated with spatial measures of change. Forest degradation was higher outside the PA at a landscape level and inside the PA at the village level, therefore the PA was effective in reducing degradation at the landscape level but not at the village level inside the PA. We further discuss the role of community observations in interpreting forest degradation in neglected forest landscapes.
Pangolins are the most trafficked animals globally. Although the Indian pangolin Manis crassicaudata occurs across the Indian subcontinent (excluding parts of the Himalayas and the north-east, where the Chinese pangolin Manis pentadactyla is present), it is categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List as a result of heavy poaching for its meat and scales. Several areas have not yet been surveyed for the occurrence of the Indian pangolin, one of which is the 16,948 km2 tropical deciduous forests of the northern Eastern Ghats landscape in Andhra Pradesh. During December 2017–April 2018, we surveyed 750 km2 of this landscape for the presence of the Indian pangolin, using camera traps. As an alternative method to document pangolin presence, and to identify factors driving hunting of the species, we also conducted, during the same period, a total of 60 semi-structured interviews with people in 30 villages. Interviewees reported the presence of pangolins in a majority of the grid cells that we surveyed with camera traps, particularly in moist deciduous forests distant from villages. However, the camera traps did not detect pangolins in 840 trap-days. Hunting of pangolins for their meat, which is consumed locally, and for their scales, which are traded, is most likely the reason for the rarity of the species in this landscape. A better understanding of the proximate and ultimate drivers of pangolin hunting is required, to inform proactive conservation management for this increasingly threatened species.
Recent studies have linked COVID-19 induced restrictions to an increase in wildlife crime, with severe yet unknown implications for severely threatened taxa like pangolins. We analyze publicly available online seizure reports involving pangolins across India before (2018–2019) and during the pandemic (March–August 2020), using a longitudinal study design to estimate how lockdowns have impacted pangolin trade. Our analysis indicates a significant increase in seizures reported during the lockdown months of March to August 2020, in comparison to the same period in 2018 and 2019. We discuss the drivers behind this spike in pangolin trade and offer potential conservation measures.
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