Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01604-2 PERSPECTIVE Global shocks, cascading disruptions, and (re‑)connections: viewing the COVID‑19 pandemic as concurrent natural experiments to understand land system dynamics María Piquer‑Rodríguez · Cecilie Friis · R. Ntsiva N. Andriatsitohaina · Sébastien Boillat · Paula Roig‑Boixeda · Chiara Cortinovis · Davide Geneletti · Maria‑Jose Ibarrola‑Rivas · Lisa C. Kelley · Jorge C. Llopis · Elizabeth A. Mack · Ana Sofía Nanni · Julie G. Zaehringer · Geoffrey M. Henebry Received: 6 May 2022 / Accepted: 28 January 2023 / Published online: 2 March 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract systems and on those depending on them for their Context For nearly three years, the COVID-19 livelihoods. pandemic has disrupted human well-being and Objectives We focus on the observed effects of livelihoods, communities, and economies in myriad the pandemic on landscapes and people composing ways with consequences for social-ecological systems diverse land systems across the globe. across the planet. The pandemic represents a global Methods We highlight the interrelated impacts shock in multiple dimensions that has already, and is of the pandemic shock on the economic, health, likely to continue to have, far-reaching effects on land and mobility dimensions of land systems using six vignettes from different land systems on four continents, analyzed through the lens of socio- ecological resilience and the telecoupling framework. Supplementary Information The online version We present preliminary comparative insights contains supplementary material available at https://​doi.​ gathered through interviews, surveys, key informants, org/​10.​1007/​s10980-​023-​01604-2. M. Piquer‑Rodríguez (*) S. Boillat Institute of Geographical Sciences, Freie Universität School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences Berlin, Berlin, Germany HAFL, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Zollikofen, e-mail: maria.piquer-rodriguez@fu-berlin.de Switzerland C. Friis S. Boillat Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Switzerland Denmark e-mail: cefr@ign.ku.dk P. Roig‑Boixeda Frankfurt Zoological Society, Bernhard‑Grzimek‑Allee 1, R. N. N. Andriatsitohaina 60316 Frankfurt Am Main, Germany Department of Forestry and Environment, School e-mail: roigboixeda@zgf.de of Agronomy Sciences, University of Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar P. Roig‑Boixeda e-mail: ntsiva_intel@yahoo.fr Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, S. Boillat Spain Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland e-mail: sebastien.boillat@giub.unibe.ch Vol.: (0123456789) 13 1148 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 and authors’ observations and propose new research Introduction avenues for land system scientists. Results The pandemic’s effects have been unevenly The COVID-19 pandemic has spread across the globe distributed, context-specific, and dependent on the over the course of the past two years, infecting well multiple connections that link land systems across the over half a billion people and resulting in the death globe. of at least 6.7 million as of January 2023 (JHU Conclusions We argue that the pandemic presents 2023). Beyond its direct effects on human health, concurrent “natural experiments” that can advance the manifold disturbances to economies, institutions, our understanding of the intricate ways in which societies, and established political systems and policy global shocks produce direct, indirect, and spillover processes have made the COVID-19 pandemic one effects on local and regional landscapes and land of the most disruptive global shocks since the World systems. These propagating shock effects disrupt Wars (Maital and Barzani 2020). It is, perhaps, existing connections, forge new connections, and the first truly global shock in the early twenty-first re-establish former connections between peoples, century. Countless national, regional, and local landscapes, and land systems. implementations of border closures, lockdowns, social distancing, and other containment policies Keywords Socio-ecological land systems · (Teachout and Zipfel 2020; Hale et al. 2021), Resilience · Telecoupling · Mobility · Governance · ongoing production and supply chain shocks (Padhan Conservation and Prabheesh 2021), and altered consumption preferences and patterns (Kwon et al. 2022) have destabilized national and regional economies, triggering new manifestations of inequality, political instability, and conflict (Bloem and Salemi 2021; Ahmed et al. 2022). These burdens have fallen on C. Cortinovis E. A. Mack Department of Geography, Humboldt-Universität zu Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Berlin, Berlin, Germany Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, e-mail: chiara.cortinovis@hu-berlin.de USA e-mail: emack@msu.edu D. Geneletti Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical A. S. Nanni Engineering, University of Trento, Trento, Italy Instituto de Ecología Regional and Facultad de Ciencias e-mail: davide.geneletti@unitn.it Naturales e IML, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina M.-J. Ibarrola‑Rivas e-mail: sofiananni@gmail.com Institute of Geography, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico J. G. Zaehringer e-mail: ibarrola@geografia.unam.mx Wyss Academy for Nature at the University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland L. C. Kelley Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, J. G. Zaehringer University of Colorado, Denver, Denver, CO, USA Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse e-mail: lisa.kelley@ucdenver.edu 12, 3012 Bern, Switzerland J. C. Llopis G. M. Henebry School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial UK Sciences and Center for Global Change and Earth e-mail: j.llopis@bangor.ac.uk Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA J. C. Llopis · J. G. Zaehringer e-mail: henebryg@msu.edu Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland e-mail: julie.zaehringer@unibe.ch Vol:. (1234567890) 13 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 1149 families and individuals in gendered, generational, earth) during the latter half of 2021. GLP members and racialized ways (Myers et al. 2020; Agarwal shared their insights and experiences on two topics: 2021), in the form of lost jobs and income streams, (i) the effects (detected or expected) of the COVID- return migration from cities to villages (Marschke 19 pandemic on the land systems they study; and et al. 2021; Suhardiman et al. 2021), and strained (ii) the frameworks, approaches, and tools that could access to food, water, and health care (Mishra and be used to detect and evaluate such changes. The Rampal 2020; Collins et al. 2021), among others. subsequent discussions offered a kaleidoscope of Despite growing understanding of the pandemic’s insights, and experiences gleaned from a variety of multi-faceted implications, the links to land system land systems and the impacts of the pandemic. We dynamics have remained relatively underexplored. So formalized these discussions through a collaborative far, emerging research on the COVID-19 pandemic exercise of brainstorming sessions where we shared and land systems has focused mainly on the relation our perceptions and lessons from each other’s land between land-use change and the potential for new systems. This article summarizes the outcomes pathogen emergence (Azevedo et al. 2020; Gibb et al. of those sessions, with the aim to stimulate and 2020). Research on how the pandemic feeds back encourage fellow land systems scientists to take into land systems through the disruption of existing advantage of this highly unusual global event to conditions or the generation of new connections advance understanding of land system interactions, remains scarce (Boillat and Zaehringer 2020; responses to systemic shocks, subsequent Brancalion et al. 2020; Nolte et al. 2022). Addressing developmental trajectories, and opportunities for this knowledge gap is key for three reasons. First, adaptive management. land use and land users are related in complex and We synthesized key insights from the pandemic contingent ways to global production, processing, shocks to geographically diverse land systems using and delivery systems, labor networks, and markets six vignettes from land systems in the Amazon and, critically, to the landscapes and ecosystems that Basin (Colombia and Peru), Argentina, Madagascar, host the land uses. Thus, we expect that land systems Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, and Italy (Fig. 1). The will be affected by disruptions or reconfigurations six vignettes were first presented during the GLP of these systems, networks, and markets. Second, webinars. The vignettes span four continents, and many families, communities, and even nations rely include both tropical and temperate ecosystems, on labor migration to support strained household rural and urban areas, and diverse spatial extents (see economics through remittances to lower and middle SI for more details). Although the selection of the income countries) and to sustain industrialized vignettes was opportunistic rather than systematic, forestry, fuel, fiber, and food operations through and the glimpses into these diverse land systems provision of labor (Radel et al. 2019). The pandemic- was necessarily limited, the co-production of this related disruption of the movement of both people piece enabled us to share and engage in an extended and products has in some cases raised the potential interdisciplinary discussion on the impacts of a major for conflicts and competition for land between, for global shock on different land systems. Each vignette example, subsistence agriculture and production of draws on expert knowledge and includes insights export commodities. Third, it is widely acknowledged from direct observations and fieldwork by the authors that the risks and burdens of disease are unevenly in the narrow window for local and international distributed and absorbed, both socially and spatially travel possible during summers of 2021 and 2022, (Bathina et al. 2021). Thus, place-based studies and or from reports and conversations with research comparative work on pandemic-land relations are partners, key informants, local stakeholders, media needed to characterize trajectories of change and (re-) reports and other online resources explored in the last connectivity and the commonalities and differences three years. in such trajectories across locations (e.g., Sawalhah We build on three conceptual frameworks to et al. 2021; Chin et al. 2020). describe the responses and interactions triggered by This perspective article emerged from a series the COVID-19 pandemic in the six vignettes. First, of webinars and online discussions held under the the effects of shocks on land-use change and land- aegis of the Global Land Programme (https://​glp.​ use decisions are well documented (Ramankutty Vol.: (0123456789) 13 1150 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 Fig. 1  Location of the six vignettes illustrating COVID- mixed agribusiness and smallholder landscape in Besulutu, 19 impacts on land systems and a photo of a representative Sulawesi, Indonesia (photo credit: L. Kelley); Betsimisaraka landscape. Clockwise from top left: Matsiguenka village in village by the northeastern Madagascar rainforest near Makira the Peruvian Amazon rainforest near Manu National Park Natural Park (photo credit: J. Llopis); agribusiness landscape (photo credit: D. Rosengren); urban landscape of Trento, Italy in the Chaco Dry forests of northern Argentina (photo credit: (photo credit: D. Geneletti), temperate montane agropastoralist B. Gobbi) landscape in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan (photo credit: G. Henebry); and Coomes 2016). They include, for example, in agricultural land use (Ioffe et al. 2012; Schierhorn effects of institutional shocks (de Beurs and Henebry et al. 2013), introduction of new regulations and 2004; Prishchepov et al. 2012), warfare and armed subsidies (Bartolini and Viaggi 2013; Quiroga et al. conflicts (de Beurs and Henebry 2008; Baumann 2017), and economic shocks leading to deforestation and Kuemmerle 2016) on land abandonment, shifts and/or widespread shifts in land control and access Vol:. (1234567890) 13 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 1151 (Pagiola 2000; Robertson and Pinstrup-Andersen and for some time recorded among the highest 2010; Spalding 2017; Fairbairn 2020). numbers of cases and deaths worldwide (Mathieu Second, the theory of social-ecological systems et al. 2020). There was fear that the disease could resilience (Walker et al. 2004; Folke 2006) presents be devastating for the indigenous people (Moeller valuable heuristic tools to organize the complexity and Pedersen 2020). In response to that threat and of land systems that evolve and respond to shocks. as an example of solidarity emerging during the While much attention has been given to shocks and pandemic, both governmental and non-governmental crises as destructive forces, research on systems conservation actors went beyond their designated resilience also emphasizes how crises can offer roles to provide preventive and curative health support windows of opportunities for innovations and new to indigenous communities (FZS 2020, 2021). The forms of coordination that may lead to strengthening countries also implemented stringent and long- of the adaptive capacity to stress and future shocks lasting restrictions to contain the pandemic, including (Holling 2001; Wu 2006; Brown 2015; Cumming and lockdowns, international and national mobility Peterson 2017). restrictions and school closures (Mathieu et al. 2020). Third, the telecoupling framework captures Biodiversity conservation efforts in two protected the social-ecological interactions over distances area networks in the Amazon basin (southeastern Peru that characterize land systems under globalization and southern Colombia) were disrupted by national and global environmental change (Liu et al. 2013; restrictions on mobility aimed to limit the spread of Friis and Nielsen 2019). From this perspective, COVID-19, thereby disrupting local and regional the pandemic is a global external force influencing economies and affecting conservation workers and land systems by generating new connections and members of indigenous communities. The immediate disrupting or transforming existing ones. The economic burdens of the pandemic shifted budgetary telecoupling framework facilitates identification of priorities, reducing domestic conservation budgets. direct effects on land systems associated with the Some international conservation NGOs maintained pandemic (i.e., a land system change that has a direct or even increased their support to alleviate the gaps cause in the pandemic), indirect impacts on receiving left by reduced government funding. Nevertheless, systems (i.e., impacts on land-use in one place which domestic budget cuts together with the disease and are caused by land-use changes in another place), and mobility restrictions affecting conservation workers potential spillover and feedback effects (i.e., land-use hindered monitoring and law enforcement efforts. changes in one place have impacts on land use and This situation, combined with increased demand and other land systems in another place, which can, in value of commodities such as gold, is believed to turn, impact back into the original land system) (Liu have aggravated a pre-existing governance vacuum et al. 2018; Meyfroidt et al. 2020). that was leveraged by illegal resource users and criminal groups and led to increased criminality, ecological degradation, land/forest conversion. Pandemic effects and feedbacks in six land There are reports and evidence of increases in illegal systems appropriation of natural resources, e.g., hunting, expansion of agricultural and cattle grazing areas, Amazon Basin: Peru and Colombia logging, drug cultivation and trafficking, and alluvial gold mining, all leading to deforestation (Céspedes This vignette focuses on two protected landscapes et al. 2022; Roig-Boixeda, unpublished data). in the Amazon basin (an extensive protected area Overall, the pandemic appears to be a multiplier of network in southeastern Peru and a protected existing threats and pressures, rather than a generator landscape in southern Colombia) and is based of new ones. A major concern among conservation on reports by key informants working for the actors has been that rolling back the increased conservation of these areas. (See S1 for additional expansion of criminal actors and illegal activities information about this study area and the others.) will be difficult post-pandemic. It is also feared that Countries in the Amazon basin, such as Colombia and disrupted local economies, including those dependent Peru, were severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, on international tourism in the protected areas, could Vol.: (0123456789) 13 1152 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 be contributing to this trend or do so in the near control and enforcement for conservation in the Dry future. Mobility restrictions at the local, national, and Chaco. Mobility restrictions at local, national, and international scales constituted another pandemic- international levels were not equally applied across triggered stressor and affected the two protected area all sectors, leading to heterogeneous impacts on networks both negatively and positively. For instance, societal actors. For instance, the need to continue movement restrictions led to reduced on-the- ground the production of agricultural commodities led to presence of conservation actors, thereby contributing the Argentine government rapidly easing mobility to the goverance vacuum. In response to these restrictions for agriculture. This early movement of restrictions, many activities and meetings were moved agricultural workers may have facilitated the spread online, requiring access to reliable internet. Whereas of the virus into rural areas with precarious health this “digitalization” prevented a complete disruption systems, such as remote forests or villages inhabited of conservation processes and communications, it by local communities. Some communities self- may have suppressed participation by members of organized to block incoming workers to limit disease indigenous communities with limited digital capacity. spread. On the other hand, indigenous people, however, were Lockdowns had at least two negative effects not affected by mobility restrictions and continued to on conservation. First, the reduced presence of engage in conservation activities within the protected government authorities jeopardized implementation areas. This situation highlights their key role and and enforcement of existing regulations, and may positionality as conservation allies. Finally, a positive have facilitated unsanctioned appropriation of natural consequence of lockdowns was reported for some resources (e.g., hunting, logging, unauthorized highly-visited protected areas: increased sighting expansion of agriculture and cattle grazing). A recent of fauna, including unusual species, likely due to study documenting agricultural frontier expansion the reduced human presence and movement (Roig- in the South American Chaco shows a surge in Boixeda, unpublished data). deforestation after 2019 (Baumann et al. 2022). This implies increasing forest conversion during the Dry Chaco, Argentina lockdown period, mirroring the situation of other deforestation frontiers globally (Fairbairn 2020; The Argentine Dry Chaco includes most of the Céspedes et al. 2022). Second, mobility restrictions South American Gran Chaco and harbors the limited access to both researchers and NGOs largest subtropical dry forests in the world. It is conducting conservation activities, thereby disrupting also a deforestation hotspot where agriculture and ongoing conservation projects and initiatives. Similar pastureland, mainly for soybean production and cattle to other parts of the world, restrictions led to the need ranching, have expanded rapidly in the last decades, to improve remote communication. Some farms and affecting natural resources and the livelihoods that rural areas of the Dry Chaco benefited from these rely on them (Baumann et al. 2017; Levers et al. improvements, an example of which is an increase 2021). At the same time, poverty and inequality are of remote monitoring of agricultural activities and very high in the Dry Chaco, particularly in more facilitated interactions between farm owners—who rural areas (Torrella and Adámoli 2005), for which usually live elsewhere—and their employees (Nanni, the pandemic deepened pre-existing socio-economic personal observation). However, inequalities in issues, and particularly influenced already vulnerable access to improved digital communications tools rural communities (Rubio and Córdoba 2020). As in further marginalized residents with limited access many places, two major direct effects of COVID-19 to the internet. In many small villages of the Chaco, experienced in this region were economic disruptions the implementation of remote learning precluded and mobility restrictions (Figure S1). many students from continuing their studies because The pandemic’s economic burdens coupled of lack of connectivity (Rubio and Córdoba 2020), with a pre-existing national recession affected as reported throughout rural territories of Argentina government budgets and their priorities. Similar (Alcoba et al. 2021). to the Amazon Basin, these budget cuts together with mobility restrictions hindered governmental Vol:. (1234567890) 13 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 1153 Maroantsetra, Madagascar (Eklund et al. 2022). To address the most acute effects of the pandemic and with an eye to future When the three first cases of COVID-19 were crises, conservation scientists and practitioners in confirmed in Madagascar in March 2020, the Madagascar suggest reinforcing support for resilient government closed the national borders in an attempt local livelihoods and investment in local capacity to halt the spread of the disease on the island. This building as a way forward (Razanatsoa et al. 2021). immediately halted international tourism, a critical sector of the country’s economy, including financial Besulutu, Indonesia support for protected area management (Goodman et al. 2018). The government also restricted Besulutu, a small sub-district (96 k­m2) located movement between regions to prevent the spread roughly an hour’s drive from Sulawesi, Indonesia’s of COVID-19 to rural areas. Despite these steps, an eastern coast, holds considerable biocultural unknown but potentially substantial number of urban significance to the Indigenous Tolaki people. Once workers left the capital, returning to family in the encompassing extensive floodplains, agro-forests, countryside (The Citizen 2020). rice fields, montane forests, and marshes, the area has These measures were also felt in the remote experienced substantial landscape homogenization north-eastern Maroantsetra District, home to since the 1980s. Industrial nickel mining and some of the largest protected areas in Madagascar, corporate oil palm concessionaires hold long-term featuring biodiversity-rich, moist forests. Masoala use rights to ~ 70% of all land in Besulutu as of National Park, for instance, registered fewer than 70 2020, and Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry controls international visitors in 2020—2% of the expected another 20% as part of its forest reserves (Dean number—forcing guides and people with tourism- 2021). Households manage 0.5–1.5 ha of land for dependent livelihoods to sell assets in order to cope seasonal vegetable crops, daily uses, and commodity with the income loss. Moreover, the region is one of production, and most depend on work outside the the world’s major vanilla producing areas, a critical village in some form and/or on work at local oil palm cash crop for rural populations (Osterhoudt 2017), and mining concessions. whose international market price has plummeted To understand pandemic-land relations in following record prices between 2013 and 2018 Besulutu, informal and in-depth interviews were (Terazono 2017). Anecdotal evidence suggests that conducted in October 2021 with farmers, workers, the combined effect of these factors might have villagers, and government officials (Kelley, forced rural populations to rely more on subsistence unpublished data). Results show that mobility agriculture—such as shifting cultivation for rice restrictions were perceived to be a larger source of production—or to move into artisanal quartz crystal COVID-19-linked harm than the immediate effects of mining, which has undergone several boom and bust the disease. Three waves of such restrictions during cycles in the region since the early 2000s (Holmes periods of high COVID-19 incidence since March 2007). Implications of these changing conditions for 2020 interrupted access to urban and peri-urban labor local livelihoods and the landscapes that host them markets and trade networks for months at a time, remain to be investigated. However, it is likely that necessitating the closure of many female-operated pressure on the region’s forests has been increasing, food stalls and businesses within villages and along given that both shifting cultivation and artisanal nearby roads. mining are often expanded into remaining forests Returning labor migrants temporarily resolved (Cook and Healy 2012; Zaehringer et al. 2015), pre-existing agricultural labor shortages in villages and this has been central in strategies deployed by and facilitated plantings of patchouli, maize, and oil local populations in the face of past shocks (Llopis palm in remaining fields using government COVID- et al. 2019). Evidence from protected areas across 19 relief funds to purchase seeds and other inputs. the country indeed suggests that pressure on the COVID-19 led to company and government policies island’s forest may have increased during the peak to prioritize recruitment of local workers, which, of the pandemic, when effective management depending on village location, unevenly informed of protected areas was more difficult to deliver both work openings and layoffs. Interviews also Vol.: (0123456789) 13 1154 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 indicate the need to attend to questions of social herders that the pandemic directly affected grazing differentiation and concurrent land-livelihood duration or intensity. This response was not surprising ‘shocks’ in future work. For instance, heavy rains given the high interannual variation in the weather at and floods since 2018 routinely cut off access to these elevations. work on plantations and mines, negatively affect new Some respondents indicated the pandemic paused commodity crop plantings, and shape gendered and migration activity, and the cessation of remittance generational challenges in accessing clean food and flows during the pandemic had affected them water during times of stress (Kelley et al. 2022). financially. Contrary to expectation, there was not a significant reduction in remittances to Kyrgyzstan at Naryn, Kyrgyzstan the national scale between 2019 and 2020, but instead a modest 0.5% increase and a substantial increase In Kyrgyzstan, a small and highly mountainous of more than 15% increase between 2020 and 2021 country in Central Asia, most of the 6.3 (World Bank-KNOMAD 2022). Only the 2019–2020 million inhabitants live in rural areas. Montane increase was weak compared to the 13% average agropastoralism is the basis of the rural economy, annual rate of increase in remittances to Kyrgyzstan featuring seasonal movements of livestock to more 2010–2017. More work remains to understand distant, higher elevation pastures coupled with regional variation in remittance dynamics. The cultivation of forage for winter feed. Kyrgyzstan picture emerging at the national level may not reflect is heavily dependent on remittances sent home the lived experience in vulnerable households who by labor migrants, who come mostly from rural are more likely to send labor migrants as a livelihood areas. International remittances averaged 29% of strategy (Sagynbekova 2017). Kyrgyzstan’s GDP between 2010 and 2017 (Mack et al. 2021). Trento, Italy In rural Naryn oblast during July 2021 and in rural Osh oblast in July 2022, we gathered information Trento is a city of 120,000 inhabitants in the Eastern about experiences with COVID-19 and its effects Alps. The urban landscape is characterized by a through formal surveys, in-depth interviews, and main settlement with a relatively dense historical informal anecdotes with villagers, herders, and center, located on flat terrain in the valley floor of government officials (Mack, unpublished data). A the Adige River, and by small villages scattered in first wave of COVID-19 swept through the province the surrounding hillsides. Trento illustrates how local during summer 2020 with the source of transmission mobility restrictions, introduced to guarantee physical being villagers who had traveled to the capital city on distancing, affected the opportunities to visit green business (e.g., to sell livestock products or purchase spaces. Demand for nature-based recreation peaked supplies). Health infrastructure in rural Kyrgyzstan during the pandemic (Venter et al. 2020; Derks et al. is limited. Many got sick with COVID-19: some 2020). However, in many cities, access to urban elderly died from the disease; most of the infected parks was banned or restricted to those living in the recovered without severe consequences. However, immediate vicinity, thereby exacerbating an already the health data are uncertain and incomplete. By all difficult situation. Physical and mental health benefits accounts, the principal impacts of the pandemic and of contact with nature are well documented (WHO associated lockdown were economic: lost wages, 2017), and access to public green spaces is especially lost jobs, lost revenue, limited supplies of food, important for vulnerable groups (Gascon et al. 2015; medicine, agricultural inputs, limited opportunity to Lee and Lee 2019). sell products, and higher prices for production inputs In Trento, we applied GIS modeling to visualize and consumptive goods. Although we witnessed a and quantify the direct and indirect effects of different reduction in tourism in Naryn in 2021 relative to restriction policies (Geneletti et al. 2022). Our results earlier years that arose, in part, due to international revealed that limiting the distance from home that perceptions about available health care (Saidmamatov people were allowed to travel and forcing them to visit et al. 2021), a partial recovery was evident in Osh only the closest green space can result in a different during 2022. We did not witness nor heard from distribution of users compared to pre-pandemic times. Vol:. (1234567890) 13 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 1155 Large parks, which offer more natural settings and a Synthesis and future research wider range of activities, became less accessible and underutilized. In contrast, centrally located small The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating parks—especially playgrounds—are likely to receive human and social consequences for many people more users, and become overcrowded during peak during the past three years. At the same time, the hours. extent and unprecedented nature of the pandemic A perception of reduced safety due to park has generated concurrent “natural experiments of overcrowding and an increased demand for opportunity” (Craig et al. 2017) that can help us recreational space pressured local governments to understand how social-ecological system connections enhance the availability of green spaces. In Trento, change, how resilient they are to global shocks, and we tested the potential benefits of transforming the relations between immediate and long-term school yards into “emergency parks”. School yards effects of such shocks. The shock of the COVID- offer the advantage of being publicly owned and 19 pandemic triggered interlinked cascading evenly distributed in the different parts of the city. disruptions in land systems across different scales Our simulation demonstrated that adding school (Fig. 2). Besides the direct effects on human health, yards to the available green areas can increase the the pandemic’s principal indirect effects included number of people with access to an uncrowded space, mobility restrictions and economic disruptions even though it requires higher maintenance and leading to multiple effects across different sectors. surveillance costs. In contrast, reducing overcrowding These cross-cutting effects, sometimes aggravated by limiting travel distance would decrease potential by pre-existing social-ecological threats, triggered park users and increase existing inequalities, local economic crises, disrupting income and especially in densely-populated neighborhoods. livelihoods, as was seen in loss of tourism revenues Fig. 2  Illustrates the propagation of the effects from the disruptions highlights the complexity of linkages between global shock of the pandemic to changes in local land use multiple processes at different scales, pointing to the need for a and land governance, including only generalized effects multidimensional, multiscale approach to analyze them and responses common to some vignettes. The cascade of Vol.: (0123456789) 13 1156 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 in Madagascar (2.3), displaced rural–urban migrants the Argentine Dry Chaco or the travel restrictions on in Indonesia (2.4), rural producers restricted from areas dependent on tourism such as in Madagascar— access to urban markets in Kyrgyzstan (2.5), and point to spillover effects within and beyond the land population movements despite restrictions reported systems studied (Fig. 2). These potential spillovers in Madagascar (2.3), Indonesia (2.4), and globally might include faster disease spread in agriculture (FAO 2021). However, there were also some positive workers to remote areas with weak health systems outcomes emerging from these disruptions, such as as in Argentina or increased deforestation from the a (temporary) increase in fauna sightings in natural expansion of subsistence agriculture due to a lack areas of the Amazon (2.1, S1.1), improved digital of tourism employment as in Madagascar. Further tools and remote communicaiton (albeit with unequal research is needed to identify, map, and understand access) in Chaco (2.2, S1.2), and potential longer- these interactions. term benefits of opening school playgrounds to the Based on our six vignettes and the direct, indirect, public in Trento (2.6, S1.6). and potential spillover effects of the pandemic on The combined effects of return migration, local the land systems they represent, we see a number economic crises, mobility restrictions, and health of important avenues for future research that consequences have generated new distributions of can advance the intertwined disciplines of land land-use needs that induced altered land-use pressures system science, landscape ecology, and landscape (Fig. 2): fewer tourists in the Amazon and Madagascar sustainability science. led to reduced income and could have indirectly led First, we need more research emphasis on the to increased pressure on forest and land; limiting longer term effects of the direct and indirect pandemic mobility led to reduced use of peripheral urban green impacts on land systems. What will, for example, spaces in Trento; returning labor migrants facilitated be the longer term effects of reduced conservation new commodity crop plantings in Indonesia; and a budgets on the prevalence of deforestation and return to subsistence agriculture and artisanal mining land grabbing, as seen in the Amazon and the Dry in Madagascar. These changes have, in turn, pressured Chaco? How will the loss of wages and jobs affect local institutions to adjust land governance, and led local economies in the future and what will be the to responses at both local and national levels. In implications for local land uses and management Indonesia, return migration and an increased agrarian practices? Will shifts in livelihood strategies labor supply led local leaders to invest COVID-19 consolidate after the pandemic with continuing relief funds in smallholder agricultural production. increased pressure on forest resources, as seen with In Trento, changing access rules and management of the subsistence farmers and small-scale miners in public green areas emerged as a potential emergency Madagascar? What will be the longer-term impacts solution to maintain mental health. However, in of changing migration, mobility, and remittance other areas, such as the Amazon and the Argentine trends? Will labor migrants return to cities, change Dry Chaco, decreased conservation budgets forced their destinations, or remain in rural areas and, for changes in practical conservation management, example, continue to resolve agribusiness’ COVID- reducing enforcement and control activities that led 19-linked labor recruitment issues as seen in to increased illegal appropriation of natural resources. Indonesia? How will pandemic-incurred debts, as Yet, in the Amazon, the restructuring of networks of observed in Kyrgyzstan, influence future migration actors and the use of new digital tools has offered patterns and remittance dynamics? new opportunities for conservation and forest Second, while the direct health impacts had management. Immediate changes in conservation immense consequences for the people affected, the enforcement in the wake of the pandemic may thus indirect effects of mobility restrictions and economic have longer-term ramifications for landscape change, disruptions were the main causes of the cascading ecosystem services, and land governance that merit impacts that affected land use and land governance further study. In addition to the direct and indirect (Fig. 2). These disparate impacts reinforce the effects of the pandemic, some of the observed importance of the continued need to investigate phenomena—such as the early lifting of mobility how manifold connectivities within landscapes, restrictions in some commodity production regions in telecouplings between land systems, and the spillover Vol:. (1234567890) 13 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 1157 effects of such couplings, influence land-use change pandemic shocks interacted with natural hazards and and land-use decisions at local, subnational, national, co-occurring stressors to shape landscapes? To what and regional scales (Butler et al. 2022; Meyfroidt extent can resilience strategies that proved successful et al. 2022). during the pandemic be applied to other types of Third, the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic shocks (e.g., natural hazards, climate change) that can has had impacts on multiple dimensions requires be expected in the future? The magnitude and spread more in-depth attention to the dynamics of of the pandemic shocks offer a unique opportunity winners and losers of global shocks and how they to explore aspects related to resilience and to test evolve over time. Will the observed pandemic theoretical concepts through comparative approaches. impacts continue to reflect differential access to Finally, these novel and unanticipated system resources at different scales, from the intra-urban configurations highlight the need to question whether (Kim and Bostwick 2020; Spotswood et al. 2021) current indicators (e.g., health, sustainability, to global (Laborde et al. 2021)? Or will they be economy) are sufficient to characterize system redistributed, producing new patterns of access dynamics. For instance, new robust indicators of to and exclusion from resources and governance land system resilience that permit near-real-time dynamics, as was observed in Argentina and the measurements of land system dynamics are needed Amazon for unequal access to digitalization? Will (Wu 2012, 2021). More broadly, to what extent do the loss of income produced through international the experiences of the past many months challenge tourism—as seen in Madagascar—or reduced the relevance of the current Sustainable Development budgets for conservation—as seen in El Chaco Goals (SDGs)? and the Amazon—be temporary or permanent? The global shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic What will be the long-term effects—both positive have affected land systems across the world in and negative—of disrupted tourism streams to similarly direct but differently indirect ways. These protected areas, and what are potential lessons systemic shocks offer an unusual opportunity for learned from the pandemic years that could feed land scientists to deepen their understanding of the into the development of sustainable tourism? On coupled human-natural systems they study. We have the other hand, the loss of distant connections can started to look at the immediate and longer term foster new forms of local solidarity and resistance, effects in our land systems of interest, and we invite as observed in the conservation networks in the our colleagues to consider doing likewise so that Amazon. Adding to recent discussions on social- we can engage in broader and deeper comparative ecological inequalities in the telecoupling literature analyses to increase mutual understanding and (Martín-López et al. 2019; Boillat et al. 2020), the identify common vulnerabilities and possible COVID-19 pandemic represents a new context to solution pathways for better land stewardship. explore how new and old global connections shape social-ecological inequalities and the mechanisms Acknowledgements This study contributes to the Global Land Programme (https://​glp.​earth). JCL was funded by that underpin them. the Swiss National Science Foundation through Grant Fourth, these shifting relations of inequalities P2BEP2_191790. MPR acknowledges funding by SDGNN- also point to the variation and differentiated levels ZEU Justus-Liebig University Giessen. GMH and EAM of social-ecological resilience in and between land acknowledge support through NASA Land Cover Land Use Change Project 80NSSC20K0411. SB’s contribution was systems. Here it will be important to understand funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Grant which attributes associated with resilience have Number 176736 “AgroWork”. CF acknowledges support influenced the capacities to cope with and adapt through the Carlsberg Foundation Reintegration Fellowship to the shocks resulting from the pandemic, such as Grant CF19-0526. CC acknowledges funding by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. DG acknowledges support from shocks to ecosystem services (cf. Pamukcu-Albers the Project NASCENT, funded under the University of Trento et al. 2021; Butler et al. 2022). How does previous Research Grant "Covid 19". PRB acknowledges funding from exposure to cumulative shocks and multiple hazards the Frankfurt Zoological Society. ASN acknowledges funding (cf., Drakes and Tate 2022) influence the resilience from Rufford Small Grant Foundation and the Conservation Leadership Programme. We thank the editor-in-chief and of land systems to the pandemic shocks? How have the anonymous reviewers for providing us with constructive Vol.: (0123456789) 13 1158 Landsc Ecol (2023) 38:1147–1161 feedback that helped to increase the clarity and relevance of Alcoba L, Salatino MN, Chavez MFF, Gonzalez L, Quiroga this perspective. MB (2021) Pandemia y jóvenes en territorios rurales de Argentina. Eutopía. Revista de Desarrollo Econ Terr Author contributions All authors contributed to the general (19):54–76 co-production of this work, revised it, and agreed on its Azevedo JC, Luque S, Dobbs C, Sanesi G, Sunderland TCH content. Workshops were organized by MPR, CF, and GMH, (2020) The ethics of isolation, the spread of pandemics, coordinators of the GLP working groups “Socio-Ecological and landscape ecology. Landsc Ecol 35(10):2133–2140 Land Systems of Latin America”, “Telecoupling Towards Bartolini F, Viaggi D (2013) The common agricultural policy Sustainable Transformation” and “Remittance Dynamics and the determinants of changes in EU farm size. Land and Land Change”, respectively. Vignettes were written by Use Policy 31:126–135 PRB (Amazon), ASN and MPR (Argentina), JCL, RNNA Bathina KC, Ten Thij M, Valdez D, Rutter LA, Bollen J (2021) and JGZ (Madagascar), LCK (Indonesia), GMH and EAM Declining well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kyrgyzstan), DG and CC (Italy). Figure 1 was designed by reveals US social inequities. PLoS ONE 16(7):e0254114 JCL. Figure 2 was co-designed and co-developed mainly by Baumann M, Kuemmerle T (2016) The impacts of warfare MJIR and CC, all authors contributed. All authors contributed and armed conflict on land systems. J Land Use Sci equally to the writing of the manuscript. 11(6):672–688. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1080/​17474​23x.​2016.​ 12413​17 Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Baumann M, Gasparri I, Piquer-Rodríguez M, Gavier Pizarro Projekt DEAL. Global Land Project, Justus Liebig Universität G, Griffiths P, Hostert P, Kuemmerle T (2017) Carbon Gießen (SDGNN-ZEU), Carlsberg Foundation Reintegration emissions from agricultural expansion and intensification Fellowship (CF19-0526), Swiss National Science Foundation in the Chaco. Glob Chang Biol 23(5):1902–1916. https://​ (176736 “AgroWork”, P2BEP2_191790), Frankfurt doi.​org/​10.​1111/​gcb.​13521 Zoological Society, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Baumann M, Gasparri I, Buchadas A, Oeser J, Meyfroidt P, University of Trento (Research Grant "COVID-19"), NASA Levers C, Romero-Muñoz A, De Waroux YL, Müller D, Land Cover Land Use Change Program (80NSSC20K0411, Kuemmerle T (2022) Frontier metrics for a process-based 80NSSC20K0411), Rufford Small Grant Foundation, and understanding of deforestation dynamics. Enviro Res Lett Conservation Leadership Programme. 17(9):095010. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1088/​1748-​9326/​ac8b9a Bloem JR, Salemi C (2021) COVID-19 and conflict. World Declarations Dev 140:105294 Boillat S, Zaehringer J (2020) COVID-19, reverse migration, Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing inter- and the impact on land systems. Global Land Project blog. ests. https://​glp.​earth/​news-​events/​blog/​covid-​10-​rever​se-​migra​ tion-​and-​impact-​land-​syste​ms Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Boillat S, Martin A, Adams T, Daniel D, Llopis J, Zepharovich Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits E, Oberlack C, Sonderegger G, Bottazzi P, Corbera E, use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any Ifejika Speranza C, Pascual U (2020) Why telecoupling medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the research needs to account for environmental justice. J original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Land Use Sci 15(1):1–10. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1080/​17474​ Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. 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