COVID-19 and Rural Households’ Environmental Incomes in Iran

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted rural livelihoods in the Global South. Environmental products, such as medicinal plants and fodder harvested in forests and rangelands, are a major source of income in many rural communities. In this paper, we investigate environmental product-related income and economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic using face-to-face interviews with randomly selected household heads (n = 384) in 26 villages in northwestern Iran. We found that the main impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were a decrease in income (reported by 72% of households), an increased health risk (48%), and persistent fear of infection by COVID-19 (45%). Household economies were found to be particularly reliant on animal husbandry (26% of total annual household income) and farming (26%). Environmental products contributed an average of 18% of total household income. Almost half of the households (45%) experienced lower livestock prices, a lack of buyers (49%), and a lockdown of animal markets (38%). Fodder (collected by 45% of households), medicinal plants (42%), and wild fruits (29%) were the most important environmental products harvested during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found a negative but not significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on total rural household income and that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a slight non-significant decrease in relative forest income. The negative impact on relative forest income resonates well with existing scholarship on livelihoods and negative shocks. It is noteworthy, however, that there is substantial scope for increasing environmental incomes and, thus, the potential of environmental products as a response option in the face of covariant shocks such as COVID-19.