Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment

Abstract

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus, initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness.

A Gulf in lockdown: How an enforced ban on recreational vessels increased dolphin and fish communication ranges

“…This presented researchers around the world an unprecedented setting to quantify the effects of human activity on wildlife (Bennett et al, 2020;Patrício Silva et al, 2020;Rutz et al, 2020). Although the socio-economic impacts were severe and widely felt, urban wildlife responded to the sudden cessation of human activities (Bates et al, 2021). News reports of wildlife invading urban areas quickly ensued: pumas spotted in downtown Santiago; jackals on the streets of Tel Aviv; goats along deserted highways in Istanbul; fallow deer in London; grey langurs in Ahmedabad, India, and many others (Rutz et al, 2020).…”

Natural Environments, Psychosocial Health, and Health Behaviors in a Crisis – A Scoping Review of the Literature in the COVID-19 Context

“…Hence, for future reviews investigating associations between nature and health or health behaviors, it would be useful to also investigate associations between nature and physiological health and to assess the quality of the included articles. In addition, a comprehensive review that also considers the positive and negative impact of human-nature interactions on the natural environment, such as wildlife rebounding and increases in illegal nature activities such as hunting (Bates et al, 2021), as well as potential co-benefits (Inauen et al, 2021), would be valuable to obtain a holistic planetary health understanding (Whitmee et al, 2015).…”

Surviving the Urban Jungle: Anthropogenic Threats, Wildlife-Conflicts, and Management Recommendations for African Crowned Eagles

“…In particular, surveys into the local "muthi" markets were not included during our research. Raptor trade for such belief-based use (and also for bushmeat) is concentrated in West and Central Africa (Buij et al, 2016), and hunting pressure linked to the trade is currently on the rise (Bates et al, 2021;Sumasgutner et al, 2021). To quantify such practices in other parts of Africa would be a valuable addition to understand potential population impacts on Crowned Eagles in peri-urban and rural areas.…”