Conservation Amid COVID-19 Pandemic: Ecotourism Collapse Threatens Communities and Wildlife in Morocco

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has had huge impacts on multiple industries and sectors, not just ecotourism and wildlife protection in Morocco. Ecological health and wildlife are a critical resource for the country’s tourism sector recovery. Conservation is considered as one of the industries that are hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the threats facing biodiversity and protected areas have been exacerbated during and following, the outbreak with practices such as poaching, wildlife trafficking, and forest logging activities resumed due to the country lockdown and ecotourism collapse. Conservationists should take emergency actions in the short-term to help rural communities and grassroots organizations and review waysto achieve conservation and sustainability goals in the post-pandemic era.

Scale of the issue: Mapping the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on pangolin trade across India

“…Several studies have suggested that such livelihood loss coupled with increased human confinement and limited conservation enforcement would have inadvertently increased likelihood of poaching of wildlife ( Bakar and Rosbi, 2020 ; Bates et al, 2020 ; Buckley, 2020 ; Rutz et al, 2020 ). Such spikes in poaching during lockdown have already been witnessed in southern African parks ( Roth, 2020 ), Morocco ( Cherkaoui et al, 2020 ), and Italy ( Manenti et al, 2020 ). Similar trends have also been observed in Asia, including India ( Dalton, 2020 ; Special Correspondent, 2020 ; Ghosal and Casey, 2020 ; Saeed et al, 2020 ).…”

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

“…Some protected areas also reported fewer disturbances of animals due to lower visitation rates, and fewer incidences of road kill (Smith et al, 2021). However, enhanced illegal trafficking of wildlife was reported in some regions as livelihoods collapsed or enforcement efforts were reduced (Cherkaoui et al, 2020; CS1, Table 1).…”

“…Pinder et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2020). The persecution (illegal or otherwise) of wildlife perceived as pests, including endangered species such as wolves and raptors, has also reportedly increased, although quantifiable data are lacking (Cherkaoui et al, 2020). Species susceptible to COVID-19 transmission, such as great apes, are at greater risk of contracting the disease from visitors unless strict safeguarding measures are implemented, with unknown but possibly severe consequences for population persistence (CS2, CS6, Table 1).…”

“…UNLIKELY/Red colour = Impact is considered unlikely to occur in the short or long term. Colour gradation represents the duration of the impact: the darker the colour, the longer the impact is likely to continue the significance of biodiversity conservation for human well-being and livelihoods (Laffoley et al, 2020), finding ways to incentivise greater community participation across conservation programs and research (Cherkaoui et al, 2020;Ramvilas et al, 2021) and promote sustainable tourism and funding models that do not rely on large visitor numbers and/or which maximise local benefits (McGinlay et al, 2020). (f) The importance of diverse income streams to protect conservation funding and local livelihoods was highlighted across case studies (CS1, CS2, CS3, CS5 and CS6; Table 3).…”

“…(f) The importance of diverse income streams to protect conservation funding and local livelihoods was highlighted across case studies (CS1, CS2, CS3, CS5 and CS6; Table 3). The literature also highlighted routes to the diversification of income streams via the development of virtual tourism opportunities, the creation of sustainable finance models such as selling of carbon offset credits, crowdsourcing, attraction of private or philanthropic capital and microfinancing initiatives (Cherkaoui et al, 2020;Cumming et al, 2021;Lindsey et al, 2020;Phua et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2021). (g) Finally, innovation, in terms of adopting new technologies and techniques to engage the public, maintain tourism (income), deliver conservation messaging and ensure the continuation of research and monitoring-as well as identifying new avenues of research-was seen as key to reducing the impacts of similar future perturbations on conservation activities (CS1-CS6; Figure 2).…”