Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, MPA News is continuing to compile related resources for our readers. Here is our latest collection:
News media
Reset Sustainable Development Goals for a pandemic world (Nature) — COVID-19 is exposing the fragility of the goals adopted by the United Nations, two-thirds of which are now unlikely to be met.
Scientists Find Larger Fish, Clearer Water During Hanauma Bay Closure (Civil Beat): Scientists anticipate this MPA’s vacation from vacationers will bring a much-needed boost to its overall health.
As COVID-19 curbs patrols in Nicaragua, turtle eggs risk being poached (Mongabay) — Poaching in coastal protected areas has previously increased when Nicaragua’s political crises left the beaches unprotected.
Park rangers, the guardians of Ecuador’s biodiversity, face job insecurity (Mongabay): Ecuador’s environment ministry denies it has dismissed the country’s protected area rangers (including in the Galápagos Islands), saying that only the nature of their contracts has been changed.
Grants
BIOPAMA Rapid Response Grants to support protected areas (terrestrial and marine) facing the COVID-19 pandemic in African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. The call is open until 31 December 2020. Maximum grant size is EUR 50k with no co-financing required.
Journal article
COVID‐19 and protected and conserved areas, PARKS, May 2020. Co-authored by 35 protected area practitioners, this essay suggests three potential scenarios for how the pandemic will impact protected areas and their role in society’s recovery:
- A return to normal;
- A global economic depression and decline in conservation; or
- A new and transformative relationship with nature – “the only sustainable pathway,” write the authors.
From The Skimmer (MPA News’ sister newsletter on sustainable ocean management)
How the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting marine ecosystems, Part 1: Fisheries and aquaculture, The Skimmer, April 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic, Part 2: Perspectives on the future of coastal and marine tourism and its implications for coastal and marine ecosystems, The Skimmer, May-July 2020
More on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting coastal and marine tourism and usage, The Skimmer, August-September 2020
Prior MPA News articles
MPAs, COVID-19, and the coming financial crisis: What impacts are practitioners already seeing, and how are they responding?, MPA News, May 2020
“Donors have started to shift funding to address other urgent and essential needs”: An interview with Markus Knigge of Blue Action Fund, MPA News, June 2020
“We need to be talking about innovation”: Insights from the World Economic Forum panel on MPAs and COVID-19, MPA News, June 2020
More resources on MPAs and COVID-19: Management challenges – How sites are coping – Instituting new user policies, MPA News, July-August 2020