COVID-19 lockdown and the forestry sector: Insight from Gandaki province of Nepal

Abstract

Almost all countries have imposed large-scale mobility restrictions (or lockdown) to stop the spreading of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The mobility restriction has disrupted all types of business; causing a devastating impact on countries' economies; and pushing millions of people into extreme poverty. Scientists have been assessing the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on various fronts but there is limited scholarship in the forestry sector. We navigated the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the forestry sector by taking Gandaki Province (21,974 km 2 ) of Nepal as a case. Employing semi-structured interviews ( n = 62) with all ten stakeholder groups, literature review and media analysis, our study revealed that the COVID-19 lockdown suspended all types of forestry and ecotourism businesses; obstructed research and monitoring activities; halted capacity development and extension services; impacted forest development work; and increased incidences of illegal logging and poaching and trafficking of wildlife. Because of the complete shutdown of businesses, the forestry sector of Gandaki province lost 9.6 million USD and 3.2 million man-days of employment during the lockdown period. The economic cost of the lockdown was 1.73 million USD for NTFPs traders, 1.26 million USD for ecotourism entrepreneurs, 0.55 million USD for the community forest user groups and 0.24 million USD for the smallholder or private forest owner. We suggested four post-COVID recovery pathways, including sustainable forest management, nature-based tourism, improvement of forest products value chain and community-based natural resource management to bounce back from the loss. As the current pandemic is most likely to derail the Sustainable Development Pathways of several countries, including Nepal and necessitates the need for an immediate response, the finding and recommendation of our study may inform decision-makers to reimage post-pandemic recovery and leverage sustainable development.

Impact of COVID-19 in the forestry sector: A case of lowland region of Nepal

“…Pandemics have larger impacts on both developed and developing countries; however, developing countries suffer more as compared to the developed ones due to their limited capacity to deal with such impacts and so the COVID-19 (Ahmad et al 2020; Barbier & Burgess 2020 ; Dixon et al 2021 ). Lack of employment safeguards and financial security as of the high-income countries, people of developing countries should continue depending on natural resources, primarily on agriculture and forests, for their livelihoods ( Laudari et al, 2022 , Laudari et al, 2021 , Rahman et al, 2021 ). COVID-19 could have massive impacts on such essential livelihood resources and the resource-dependent people.…”

“…Immediately after its emergence in late 2019, scholars are heavily engaged in the assessment of the impacts from COVID-19 with higher attention towards health and wellbeing, gender, food production and supply, stock market and the overall economy ( Feber et al, 2020 , Wenham et al, 2020 , Li et al, 2020 , Bartik et al, 2020 , Laborde et al, 2020 , Baker et al, 2020 ; Atkenson 2020) and of course such impact assessments are primarily focused on developed nation. There are very few studies on the impact of COVID-19 in the forestry sector of the countries with higher dependency on forest resources ( Laudari et al, 2021 , Amador-Jiménez et al, 2020 , Lindsey et al, 2020 ). Impacts of COVID-19 in the forestry sector might be completely different as per various responses from specific activities, management regimes and their level of interactions among people.…”

The Livelihood Challenge of Forest Honey Bee Farmers amidst COVID-19 Pandemic in Mutis, Indonesia

“…Moreover, they experience difficulties harvesting and utilizing forest honey due to limited marketing distribution channels (Hossain et al 2020;BBS, 2020;Al-Naggar et al 2020;Lima et al, 2021). This builds livelihood pressures that drive economic hardship and increasing poverty (Laudari et al 2021;Davila et al 2021).…”

“…It has affected various sectors of life (Rowan and Galanakis, 2020), especially the source of livelihood, food value chain, income, basic needs fulfillment, and public health (Shammi et al 2020;Tamru et al 2020;Brickell et al 2020;Sharma & Mahendru, 2020;Oncini et al 2020;Paudel, 2020;Anon, 2020;Corlett et al 2020;Taylor, 2020;Berretta et al 2020;Rowan and Laffey, 2020;Wannaprasert and Choenkwan, 2021). The conceptual framework (Figure 1) explores the human-forest relationship through habitat management, farmer institutions, harvesting, marketing, and livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic (Chao, 2012;Gentle et al 2020;Hossain et al 2020;Al-Naggar et al 2020;BBS, 2020;Mohan et al 2021;Lima et al 2021;Laudari et al 2021;Davila et al 2021). This relationship has changed due to social restriction policies during the pandemic, especially on transportation access, goods distribution, marketing networks, and community social activities.…”

“…Consequently, limited marketing affects livelihood sources, increasing economic hardship and poverty. Moreover, it causes the suspension of forestry activities, increasing illegal logging, and decreasing forestry's economic contribution (Laudari et al, 2021). Studies in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, PNG, and Timor Leste have shown an increase in poverty and a decrease in per-capita income and household consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic (Davila et al 2021).…”