By Richard T. Corlett, Richard B.
Primack, and Vincent Devictor
“In society you will not find
health, but in nature.” -Thoreau in Excursions
Conservation biologists are
concerned with how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact the world’s biodiversity
and our ability to protect it, as well as how it might affect the training and
careers of conservation researchers and practitioners. We can already see that
field and lab work have largely shut down, while teaching and other
communications have moved online, with unknown consequences for training, data
collection, and networking. The media report some examples of reduced human
pressures on natural ecosystems, cleaner air and water, and wildlife reclaiming
contested habitats, but there is also less enforcement in many national parks.
From January 2020 to February 2020 the air
over China became much cleaner.
Missed research means missed opportunities
to identify conservation priorities, monitor the health of endangered species
and ecosystems, and provide practical solutions for the protection and
sustainable use of resources on which human well-being depends.
Laboratory work at virtually all universities
has been discontinued, such as this investigation of the impacts of climate
change on trees.
The pandemic also provides new
possibilities and responsibilities. How will disruptions to field work and
altered levels of human impact during the pandemic affect species and
ecosystems we have been studying, monitoring and protecting?
Fieldwork in groups, as shown in this photo
of sound monitoring at Walden Pond, has stopped, but individuals practicing
strict social distancing can sometimes continue with field work.
Beyond the immediate consequences
of this particular pandemic, some conservation biologists have started to focus
on emerging infectious diseases and their links with biodiversity loss, human
activities, and issues of sustainability.
This is a condensed version of an
article which appeared in Biological Conservation.
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