COVID-19, deforestation, and green economy

Abstract

Corona has severely impacted many sectors in the past 2. 5 years, and forests are one of the major hits among all sectors affected by the pandemic. This study presents the consolidated data on deforestation patterns across the globe during COVID and also analyzes in depth the region-specific contributing factors. Exacerbated deforestation during COVID alarms biodiversity conservation concerns and pushes back the long-term efforts to combat pollution and climate change mitigation. Deforestation also increases the risk of the emergence of new zoonotic diseases in future, as deforestation and COVID are intricately related to each other. Therefore, there is a need to check deforestation and inculcation of conservation measures in building back better policies adopted post-COVID. This review is novel in specifically providing insight into the implications of COVID-19 on forests in tropical as well as temperate global regions, causal factors, green policies given by different nations, and recommendations that will help in designing nature-based recovery strategies for combating deforestation and augmenting afforestation, thus providing better livelihood, biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and better environmental quality.

Landscape and Socioeconomic Factors Determine Malaria Incidence in Tropical Forest Countries

“…Our forecast does not include information about the pandemic in its model, nor do our global and regional linear mixed-effects models account for the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on tested risk factors and their subsequent models. However, there is increased concern about new zoonotic disease spillover and pandemics from land-use change, decreasing ecosystem health, and deforestation [109,110]. The same risk factors for increased malaria incidence may also increase the risk of new pandemics; therefore, it is worthwhile to determine how malaria incidence may fluctuate in the future with more epidemics or pandemics.…”

Evaluating the Determinants of Deforestation in Romania: Empirical Evidence from an Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model and the Bayer–Hanck Cointegration Approach

“…Several studies [47][48][49] address the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the deforestation sector globally. For instance, Singhal et al [50] analyze such a perspective in their study, based on the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation worldwide, which is a concern for biodiversity conservation.…”

“…The pandemic restrictions led to increased deforestation in various regions, due to multiple factors. This situation impacted a large part of the population that relies on forests for their livelihood and survival [50,53]. According to Wunder et al [54], approximately 645,000 hectares of rainforest were lost up to March 2020, with Indonesia accounting for nearly three times the loss, compared to March 2019.…”