Socioenvironmental conflicts under COVID-19 pandemic and the need of historical-sociological perspectives in conservation science

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global epidemiological, economic and social crisis of unprecedented scope and scale, with significant corollaries for biodiversity conservation. In response to this challenge for humanity, the scientific interest in COVID-19 in a short period occupied the attention of several researchers in different disciplines. However, understand the causes and impact of the pandemic is a complex task. In part, because even though it is a global crisis, the impact of the pandemic is not the same for everyone. The historical asymmetric power relations in the World-System are crucial for understanding environmental impacts and thinking about solutions in the post-pandemic world. In this article, we review some synergistic effects of the pandemic on socioeconomic and environmental conflicts. For this, we conducted a critical review of several primary studies, from July 2020 to March 2021. We observed that socioeconomic inequalities and our strong footprint in terrestrial and marine environments are putting humanity in a position of increasing fragility. We also note that systematic exploitation processes, power conflicts and the complex situation of abandoned local populations interact and reinforce each other, playing a dominant role in driving the dynamics of the pandemic. Likewise, we emphasize the need for a historical-sociological perspective in conservation sciences, and the development of an interdisciplinary scientific perspective, aiming to attack the bases of production and reproduction of inequalities that compromise the success of the objectives of biodiversity conservation and human well-being.