‘The global conservation community now faces the added challenge of Covid-19 on top of a longstanding set of complex conservation, sustainability, and development challenges. In the wake of this pandemic, return to business as usual is not a viable option. The existing systems and structures upon which conservation is based must evolve. Climate change, biodiversity conservation, and poverty elimination efforts have been further complicated by Covid-19, with the brunt of the pandemic borne most acutely by the poorest and most vulnerable. In attempting to rapidly address both the impacts as well as the origins of the pandemic, there have been overly reactionary responses as well as under-reactions.’
This commentary argues that the Covid-19 pandemic affords an opportunity for conservation to evolve away from underperforming business-as-usual approaches. Such a shift should “focus on careful situational analysis and addressing underlying causes, rather than proposing reactionary solutions that are oversimplified, overgeneralized, and infeasible.” Read the full commentary here.