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 89 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 a

SUBMITTER: Bates AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8135229 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature