The Consequences of COVID-19 and Other Disasters for Wildlife and Biodiversity
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The Consequences of COVID‑19 and Other Disasters for Wildlife and Biodiversity Daniel Rondeau1 · Brianna Perry1 · Franque Grimard2 Accepted: 11 July 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract We review the economic channels by which the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent policy responses may affect wildlife and biodiversity. The pandemic is put in the context of more than 5,000 disease outbreaks, natural disasters, recessions and armed conflicts in a sample of 21 high biodiversity countries. The most salient feature of the pandemic is its creation of multiple income shocks to rural and coastal households in biodiverse countries, correlated across sectors of activities and spatially. Various research and policy opportunities and challenges are explored . Keywords COVID-19 · Biodiversity · Pandemic · Disasters · Conflicts · Poverty · Food insecurity · Risk · Correlated shocks
1 Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic is a stochastic shock simultaneously affecting individuals, households, firms and institutions globally. As of July 2020, more than 11 million cases of infections and 500,000 deaths have been confirmed worldlwide (Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center 2020), and the daily case count is increasing exponentially. The policy response has been equally sweeping. International travel restrictions and lockdowns have significantly curtailed economic activity and USD$9 trillion in emergency fiscal measures have been deployed by 198 countries (IMF 2020).1 1 Unless otherwise specified, terms like “the pandemic”, and “the COVID-19 event” refer to the combination of health, policy and economic disruptions.
* Daniel Rondeau [email protected] Brianna Perry [email protected] Franque Grimard [email protected] 1
Department of Economics, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
2
Department of Economics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
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For the first time in 60 years, the global output of emerging economies is set to contract (World Bank 2020b). It is well established that poverty and food insecurity are primary drivers of biodiversity loss (Dasgupta and Mäler 1995; Dasgupta et al. 2001; Barrett et al. 2011). The compounded effects of disease and economic disruption are threatening to throw between 70 and 100 million additional people into poverty (World Bank 2020e), and the United Nations World Food Program (2020) warns that an extra 130 million people could face acute food insecurity by the end of 2020 (nearly double the pre-pandemic number). It is impossible to predict the course that the disease will take, how deeply and for how long the recession will last, or whether the pandemic will spur major changes in national policies and the general world economic order. Yet, many of the short term impacts already observed raise the possibility of significant consequences for land use, wildlife and biodiversity. People are getting gravely ill and, amid a generalized economic downturn, the demand for natural resources has dropped, nature tourism
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