The Unintended Impact of Colombia's Covid-19 Lockdown on Forest Fires

Has global deforestation accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic?

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, questions arose as to whether the pandemic would amplify or pacify tropical deforestation. Early reports warned of increased deforestation rates; however, these studies were limited to a few months in 2020 or to selected regions. To better understand how the pandemic influenced tropical deforestation globally, this study used historical deforestation data (2004-2019) from the Terra-i pantropical land cover change monitoring system to project expected deforestation trends for 2020, which were used to determine whether observed deforestation deviated from expected trajectories after the first COVID-19 cases were reported. Time series analyses were conducted at the regional level for the Americas, Africa and Asia and at the country level for Brazil, Colombia, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia. Our results suggest that the pandemic did not alter the course of deforestation trends in some countries (e.g., Brazil, Indonesia), while it did in others (e.g., Peru). We posit the importance of monitoring the long-term effects of the pandemic on deforestation trends as countries prioritize economic recovery in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11676-022-01561-7.

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on ecotourism, a study from West of Iran

Most tourism researchers agree on the effects of the COVID-19 on ecotourism. The present study aims to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ecotourism status in Lorestan province in Iran. To this aim, 29 effects were identified using Delphi technique. According to results, the effects were divided into six categories including the decreased number of incoming tourists, the reduced activity of hotels and resorts, the declined income of goods and service suppliers for tourists, the decreased activity of travel agencies and tourist tours, as well as positive and negative environmental effects. Generally, the results provide new knowledge in the field of ecotourism crisis management. In addition, the identified effects provide the basis for further research on the method of reducing the negative effects.

Biodiversity in Times of COVID-19 and its Relationship with the Socio-Economic and Health Context: A Look from the Digital Media

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a pause in people's activities and a socio-economic crisis worldwide due to confinement. This situation is an unprecedented opportunity to understand how these changes may impact biodiversity and its conservation, as well as to study human-nature interaction. Biodiversity plays an essential role in conservation and economic activities, and in countries with greater inequality and low gross domestic product (GDP), biodiversity could have a low priority. Moreover, how biodiversity is prioritized in a society impacts how the citizens view it, and digital news tends to shape biodiversity narratives. The aim of this work was to determine the main trends in biodiversity-related news categories during the COVID-19 pandemic in countries with terrestrial and marine hotspots and relate them to the socioeconomic and public health context of each country. For this, we searched for news on biodiversity and Covid-19 in the first 6 months of the pandemic and related them to GDP, Gini-index, deaths, and infections by Covid-19. Results showed that conservation, public policies, and use of natural resources stood out as the main news categories across countries, with a positive narrative and mostly related to terrestrial rather than marine environments. On the other hand, the socio-economic and public health characteristics of each country had an influence on which aspect of the biodiversity was reflected in the media. For example, countries with greater inequality were associated with tourism news, additionally, countries with low GDP, high cases, and deaths by Covid-19 were associated with news about cultural diversity. In contrast, countries with high GDP and low inequality were associated with news about zoonosis, research and development, public policies, and alien and invasive species.

Impact of COVID-19 in the forestry sector: A case of lowland region of Nepal

All walks of life have been affected by COVID-19 but smallholders from developing countries have been impacted more than others as they are heavily reliant on forest and agriculture for their livelihoods and have limited capacity to deal with COVID-19. Scholars are heavily engaged in assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on health and wellbeing, gender, food production and supply, stock market and the overall economy but not on the forestry sector. Using questionnaire surveys and key informant interviews-informed by grey literature and published articles- representing Division Forest Offices, Provincial Forest Directorates, and the Ministry of Forests and Environment in Nepal, this study assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the forestry sector of Nepal. Our analysis suggests that: (1) nature-based tourism is more severely affected than other sectors; (2) private, religious and leasehold forests faced minimal impacts of COVID-19 than that of community and government-managed forests; (3) wild boar (Sus scrofa), different species of deer, and birds have been more impacted than other wild animals; (4) the price of the timber has increased significantly whereas the price of non-timber forests products (NTFPs) has decreased; and (5) illegal logging and poaching have increased but the incidence of forest encroachment has been reduced. Our study further reveals that agroforestry practices in home gardens, borrowing money from neighbors/banks/landlords and liquidating livestock remained key alternatives for smallholders during COVID-19. Many studies reported that reverse migration could create chaos in Nepal, but our study suggests that it may enhance rural innovation and productivity, as returnees may use their acquired knowledge and skills to develop new opportunities. As COVID-19 has created a war-like situation worldwide, Nepal should come up with a forward-looking fiscal response with alternative income generation packages to local living to counter the impacts of COVID-19 on the forestry sector. One of the options could be implementing similar programs to that of India's US$ 800 Compensatory Afforestation Program and Pakistan's 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Program, which will create a win-win situation, i.e., generate employment for reverse migrants and promotes forest restoration.

Meteorological factors contributing to organic and elemental carbon concentrations in PM10 near an open-pit coal mine

Variations in the carbonaceous aerosol contents, organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC), in particulate matter less than 10 μm in size (PM₁₀), were analyzed at sites influenced by coal mining in an open-pit mine located in northern Colombia. Samples were collected during different seasonal periods throughout 2015. Meteorological variables for each site were examined during the different seasons. Aerosols were detected using a thermal-optical reflectance protocol method. The highest PM₁₀ concentrations, between the ranges of 28.2 ± 8.2 μg m^-3 and 75.0 ± 36.5 μg m^-3, were recorded during the dry season. However, the highest concentrations of OC (4.8-14.2 μg m^-3) and EC (2.9-13.9 μg m^-3) in PM₁₀ were observed during the transition period between the dry and wet seasons. The strong correlation between OC and EC in PM₁₀ (r = 0.6-1.0) during the transition season indicates a common primary combustion source. High OC (> 8.3 μg m^-3) and EC (> 6.9 μg m^-3) concentrations were associated with low wind speeds (< 2.1 m s^-1) moving in different directions. Analyses of the sources of atmospheric aerosol pollutants in the mining area in northern Colombia showed that the daily maximum total carbon concentrations were mainly associated with regional atmospheric transport of particulate matter from industrial areas and biomass burning sites located in the territory of Venezuela.

Currency Devaluation as a Source of Growth in Africa: A Synthetic Control Approach

This study examines the impact of the 1994 IMF-supported CFA franc devaluation on GDP per capita in the CFA-franc zone using the augmented synthetic control methodology. With the exception of Mali, there is no statistical evidence that GDP per capita levels rose relative to what they would have been in the absence of the IMF-supported devaluation. Three countries record statistically significant GDP per capita levels below the counterfactual following the devaluation, though these countries experienced a deterioration of their national institutional environment or were affected by external factors that offset any potential gains from the devaluation.

The relative importance of COVID-19 pandemic impacts on biodiversity conservation globally

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on almost all aspects of human society and endeavor; the natural world and its conservation have not been spared. Through a process of expert consultation, we identified and categorized, into 19 themes and 70 subthemes, the ways in which biodiversity and its conservation have been or could be affected by the pandemic globally. Nearly 60% of the effects have been broadly negative. Subsequently, we created a compendium of all themes and subthemes, each with explanatory text, and in August 2020 a diverse group of experienced conservationists with expertise from across sectors and geographies assessed each subtheme for its likely impact on biodiversity conservation globally. The 9 subthemes ranked highest all have a negative impact. These were, in rank order, governments sidelining the environment during their economic recovery, reduced wildlife-based tourism income, increased habitat destruction, reduced government funding, increased plastic and other solid waste pollution, weakening of nature-friendly regulations and their enforcement, increased illegal harvest of wild animals, reduced philanthropy, and threats to survival of conservation organizations. In combination, these impacts present a worrying future of increased threats to biodiversity conservation but reduced capacity to counter them. The highest ranking positive impact, at 10, was the beneficial impact of wildlife-trade restrictions. More optimistically, among impacts ranked 11-20, 6 were positive and 4 were negative. We hope our assessment will draw attention to the impacts of the pandemic and, thus, improve the conservation community's ability to respond to such threats in the future.

The impact of COVID-19 in curbing the goals of ensuring sustainable development of life on land (SDG 15) and below water (SDG 14)

The widespread coronavirus pandemic has halted the progress of the sustainable development goals (SDG) proposed by the United Nations. This pandemic has already shattered the economy of not only the developing countries but also the developed nations. During this period, the primary focus was on the healthcare sector, while other developmental progress wasn’t considered essential. Since the duration of the pandemic couldn’t be predicted, the SDGs are now the second priority. This chapter emphasizes on the impacts which may have caused by COVID-19 on two specific SDGs, which involve the sustainable development of marine, coastal, terrestrial, and inland aquatic ecosystem. The improper disposal of COVID-19-associated wastes, such as medical equipment, plastics, masks, and gloves, is a threat to both the lives on land and below water. Complete lockdown led to improper treatment of wastewaters before being discharged into water bodies, and waterlog caused by COVID-19 wastes in beaches resulted in the damage of aquatic ecosystem. On the contrary, the revival of the marine ecosystem closer to the coastline due to the world’s reduced economic activity is considered as an advantage. This pandemic provided a short-term success in preventing deforestation and reduced poaching, promoting the forest ecosystem. But in the long run, lack of jobs and unemployment might lead to increased cutting of trees to earn the living. Thus COVID-19 may have influenced bringing both positives and negatives to the SDGs, and these provide us with the challenges and opportunities to accomplish these goals.

COVID-19 lockdowns drive decline in active fires in southeastern United States

The coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, led to strict social-distancing guidelines that severely impacted human livelihood and economic activity. Workplace closures reduced travel, and early in spring 2020, improvements in air and water quality, reduced seismic activity, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were observed. COVID-19–related shutdowns emerged at the beginning of the prescribed fire season in the southeastern United States, where 80% of fires are human caused. Using active fire satellite observations and fuel treatment statistics, we estimated a 21% reduction in active fires from March to December 2020 (up to 40% on federal lands). This reduction in active fire may increase fire risk in the future and is detrimental to biodiversity and other ecosystem services inherent to fire-dependent ecosystems.

Fire is a common ecosystem process in forests and grasslands worldwide. Increasingly, ignitions are controlled by human activities either through suppression of wildfires or intentional ignition of prescribed fires. The southeastern United States leads the nation in prescribed fire, burning ca. 80% of the country’s extent annually. The COVID-19 pandemic radically changed human behavior as workplaces implemented social-distancing guidelines and provided an opportunity to evaluate relationships between humans and fire as fire management plans were postponed or cancelled. Using active fire data from satellite-based observations, we found that in the southeastern United States, COVID-19 led to a 21% reduction in fire activity compared to the 2003 to 2019 average. The reduction was more pronounced for federally managed lands, up to 41% below average compared to the past 20 y (38% below average compared to the past decade). Declines in fire activity were partly affected by an unusually wet February before the COVID-19 shutdown began in mid-March 2020. Despite the wet spring, the predicted number of active fire detections was still lower than expected, confirming a COVID-19 signal on ignitions. In addition, prescribed fire management statistics reported by US federal agencies confirmed the satellite observations and showed that, following the wet February and before the mid-March COVID-19 shutdown, cumulative burned area was approaching record highs across the region. With fire return intervals in the southeastern United States as frequent as 1 to 2 y, COVID-19 fire impacts will contribute to an increasing backlog in necessary fire management activities, affecting biodiversity and future fire danger.

Assessment of the Occurrence of Forest Fires in Pandemic Period by COVID-19 in Chile. Preliminary Backgrounds

The spatial and temporal behavior of the occurrence of forest fires in Chile was evaluated in the presence of COVID-19 and mobility restrictions. The fire period from 2015-2016 to 2020-2021 was considered and statistics on mobility restrictions were granted by the Government of Chile. The analysis was developed at different scales of geographic perception. At the national and regional levels, the global behavior of the occurrence was determined, and later at the communal level, the political territorial unit, to determine internal variations attributable to the mobility dynamics in the quarantine period. In the process, the meteorological background of the fire activity was also considered. The results indicate that it is possible to rule out a meteorological effect, based on the variation of the moisture content of fine fuel. There was also no statistical association between the humidity of the fuel and the variation in the occurrence of fires. It is concluded that the communes that presented the greatest mobility of people before the pandemic were those that obtained the greatest reduction in fires. The variation in mobility, the product of restriction measures, is a statistical predictor of the increase or decrease in fires.

Coronavirus, macroeconomy, and forests: What likely impacts?

Much uncertainty persists about how the coronavirus (COVID-19) and its derived crisis effects will impact both the economy and forests. Here we conceptualize a recursive model where an initial COVID-19 supply-side shock hits first the Global North that, mediated by country-specific epidemic management strategies and other (fiscal, monetary, trade) policy responses feeds through to financial markets and the real economy. Analytically we distinguish two stylized scenarios: an optimistic V-shaped recovery where effective policy responses render most economic damages transitory, versus a pessimistic pathway of economic depression, where short-run pandemic impacts are dwarfed by the subsequent economic breakdown. Economic impacts are transitioned from the global North to the South through trade, tourism, remittances and investment/capital flows. As for impacts on tropical forests, we compare the effects of past economic crises to early indicators for incipient trends. We find national income and commodity price effects to be torn between three forces: a contractive-inflationary supply-side shock, deflationary pandemic demand-side effects, and expansive-inflationary monetary and fiscal policy responses. We discuss how global forest outcomes will depend on how these macroeconomic battles are resolved, but also on geographical differences in deforestation dynamics. Reviewing recent fire and deforestation alerts data, as well as annual tree-cover loss data, we find that deforestation-curbing and -enhancing factors so far just about neutralized each other. Yet, country impacts vary greatly. Changing macroeconomic scenarios, such as fading out of huge economic stimulus packages, could change the picture significantly, in line with what our model predicts.

The sooner the better: lives saved by the lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak. The case of Italy

This paper estimates the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions – mainly, the lockdown – on the COVID-19 mortality rate for the case of Italy, the first Western country to impose a national shelter-in-place order. We use a new estimator, the augmented synthetic control method (ASCM), that overcomes some limits of the standard synthetic control method (SCM). The results are twofold. From a methodological point of view, the ASCM outperforms the SCM in that the latter cannot select a valid donor set, assigning all the weights to only one country (Spain) while placing zero weights to all the remaining. From an empirical point of view, we find strong evidence of the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in avoiding losses of human lives in Italy: conservative estimates indicate that the policy saved in total more than 21,000 human lives.

Afforestation, reforestation and new challenges from COVID-19: Thirty-three recommendations to support civil society organizations (CSOs)

Afforestation/reforestation (A/R) programs spearheaded by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play a significant role in reaching global climate policy targets and helping low-income nations meet the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, these organizations face unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, these challenges affect their ability to address issues associated with deforestation and forest degradation in a timely manner. We discuss the influence COVID-19 can have on previous, present and future A/R initiatives, in particular, the ones led by International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs). We provide thirty-three recommendations for exploring underlying deforestation patterns and optimizing forest policy reforms to support forest cover expansion during the pandemic. The recommendations are classified into four groups - i) curbing deforestation and improving A/R, ii) protecting the environment and mitigating climate change, iii) enhancing socio-economic conditions, and iv) amending policy and law enforcement practices.

Impact of lockdown on particulate matter concentrations in Colombia during the COVID-19 pandemic

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Colombia was reported on March 6, 2020. For this reason, on March 25, preventive isolation was declared mandatory. These measures involved the suspension of economic activities and drastically reduced the number of vehicles on the road. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic on PM_2.5 concentrations at 5 monitoring stations and aerosol optical depth values of the Terra/MODIS satellite. We analyzed and compared the weekly and monthly concentrations of PM_2.5 before and during the lockdown between the week of January 6 to June 22, 2020, and compared the daily values obtained from the Terra/MODIS satellite for the months of January-June during the years 2018-2020 to elucidate the effects of the lockdown. Similar to other monitored sites in the world, we observed substantial reductions in weekly PM_2.5 concentrations, from 41 to 84% (Bogotá), from 13 to 66% (Funza), from 17 to 57% (Boyacá), from 35 to 86% (Valledupar) and 31 at 60% (Risaralda). Unlike other studies, the aerosol optical depth values increased up to 59% during the months of lockdown compared to previous years and up to 70% of the weekly mean when compared to before the lockdown. These spatiotemporal behaviors of PM_2.5 and the aerosol optical depth in Colombia are influenced by reductions in vehicular flow during quarantine, regional rainfall, and height of the planetary boundary layer. Emissions from economic activities affect pollutant levels in the area. The analysis of the levels of pollutants during the lockdown provides a baseline for regulatory agencies to establish mitigation plans.

Direct Management of COVID-19 at National and Subnational Level: The Case of the Western Amazon Countries

This paper analyses direct management of COVID-19 in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, the three largest countries in the Western Amazon region. Using information gathered from different sources and analysing them through comparative case studies and content analysis, this study reveals the scale of disruption endured by Indigenous communities living in the region caused by COVID-19. While findings identify several shortcomings and failures in policies adopted by national and local governments in dealing with the pandemic, they also highlight how some Latin American countries used the crisis to introduce reforms to deepen neoliberal New Public Management (NPM) policies and practices.