Navigating a global crisis : Impacts, responses, resilience, and the missed opportunity of African protected areas during the COVID-19 pandemic
Roig Boixeda, Paula (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Corbera, Esteve (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Geografia)
Loos, Jacqueline (University of Vienna)

Date:	2025
Description:	17 pàg.
Abstract:	Protected areas (PAs) serve as key institutions for biodiversity conservation. Therefore, ensuring their long-term resilience in the face of adversity is essential. Using resilience thinking we investigate the institutional resilience of PAs across SubSaharan Africa. Specifically, we examine how the managers of 50 terrestrial PAs across 17 countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and identify factors that facilitated or hindered their capacity to respond. We show that although most PAs were negatively affected by COVID-19, these impacts varied heavily in magnitude and duration across contexts. Many of these impacts had not been addressed, with some response attempts falling short or resulting in unintended consequences. Funding gaps, lack of agency, and a lack of resilience-thinking appeared as barriers to the PAs' capacity to respond. Coping responses were the most common type used to navigate the crisis, whereas adaptive and transformative responses were rare. We interpret such predominant focus on short-term, coping responses as a sign of institutional resistance rather than resilience, and as a missed opportunity for transformation. We advocate for collective documentation and critical reflection on the effects and experiences of PAs emerging from COVID-19 and other shocks and conclude by emphasizing the need to mainstream resilience-thinking in conservation governance and management.
Grants:	Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEX2019-000940-M
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Africa ; Crises ; Impacts ; Protected areas ; Resilience ; Responses
Published in:	Ecology and society, Vol. 30, Num. 4 (December 2025) , art. 28, ISSN 1708-3087

DOI: 10.5751/ES-16352-300428

18 p, 1.0 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles