DUBLIN Nature conservation has been "significantly impacted" by the coronavirus and related restrictions, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said on Thursday, a year to the day since the outbreak was declared a pandemic. While responses to the pandemic "temporarily slowed down human impacts upon nature," the IUCN said, restrictions such as stay-home lockdowns and widespread travel curbs later led to "conservation work job losses among protected area rangers, reduced anti-poaching patrols and environmental protection rollbacks." Over the past year, according to the IUCN, "protected and conserved area operations were scaled down or suspended, visitor facilities closed, workplaces shut, many staff withdrawn from duty stations and supply chains disrupted." Over half Africa's protected areas "were forced to halt or reduce field patrols and anti-poaching operations as well as conservation education and outreach,"
Forest peoples accuse governments of using pandemic to damage jungles – dpa international
Indigenous activists putting on a traditional dance performance during a 2017 AMAN conference in Tanjung Gusto, North Sumatra, Indonesia. (Simon Roughneen)
DUBLIN The novel coronavirus pandemic has facilitated government-backed “economic opportunism” in the world’s rainforests, according to a report published on Thursday.
Authorities in Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia and Peru “have set aside social and environmental safeguards in favour of destructive development projects that are harming indigenous communities,” said the Forest People’s Programme, a British-based organization that works with indigenous people’s representatives in dozens of countries.