Impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on human–nature interactions: Pathways, evidence and implications

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (hereafter pandemic) and the resultant global response have dramatically altered people's daily lives. To curb the transmission of the virus, governments in many countries, regions and localities have implemented strict policies of social distancing and shelter-in-place (i.e. working from home or just staying home). These policies, together with more voluntary behavioural changes, have resulted in unprecedented shifts in human activity in a very short period, such as reduced travel, the closing down of much business activity and an increased time spent at home. At least in many developed countries, these rapid and widespread changes in human lives, along with the associated changes in anthropogenic pressures on the environment, have altered the dynamics of direct interactions between humans and nature (hereafter human-nature interactions). These changes have manifested in

Covid-19 and outdoor recreation management: Increased participation, connection to nature, and a look to climate adaptation

“…A recent model proposed to explain the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on human–nature interactions and builds a conceptual framework for understanding how the pandemic could affect the dynamics of these interactions. The adapted COM-B model is used to consider human behavior ( Soga et al, 2021 ) and is structured using the categories of capabilities, opportunities, and motivations that contribute to human-nature interactions (Behavior): Capability : An individual's psychological and physical capacity to engage in interactions with nature. Opportunity : Factors that facilitate or make an interaction with nature possible.…”

First Assessment of the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Marine Recreational Fisheries

“…However, the main human impacts on global marine ecosystems are far from being reduced (Ripple et al, 2017). It is unlikely that the health of the world's marine ecosystems will show sustained improvement once the COVID-19 pandemic has been brought under control (see Corlett et al, 2020;Soga et al, 2021). Therefore, as suggested by other authors (e.g., China et al, 2021), in the event of a new pandemic in which recreational activities are not restricted in natural areas, it would be advisable to limit peoples' impacts in the more degraded peri-urban areas, favoring the dispersion of the population in larger areas to limit the excessive concentration of their impacts.…”

Envisioning a resilient future for biodiversity conservation in the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Concerns remain that the COVID-19 pandemic will provoke rushed government measures that harm conservation efforts, or create societal backlash towards species perceived to be a vector of zoonotic disease, with negative consequences for the local persistence of these species and their habitats (MacFarlane & Rocha, 2020). As the COVID-19 pandemic is similar to-but of greater global public interest than-recent past zoonotic pandemics such as SARS, the present pandemic presents additional opportunities to reframe conservation monitoring as a public health benefit (Jones et al, 2008;Morse et al, 2012;Zinsstag et al, 2011) and to understand the biodiversity changes associated with the global scale of 'human confinement' and the long-term conservation outcomes of pandemic-related societal and behavioural changes (Bates et al, 2020;Cheval et al, 2020;Soga et al, 2021; CS1, CS2, CS3, CS5 and CS6).…”