The Impact of COVID-19 on the Management of European Protected Areas and Policy Implications

James Mcginlay,Panayiotis G Dimitrakopoulos,Andreas Kontoleon,Elena Bazhenova,Guillermo Chaminade,Stefano Santi,Isabel Cervera,Michael Lammertz,Mojca Smolej,Alessandro Benzoni,Teresa Pastor,Vassilis Gkoumas,Carol Ritchie,Juliana Doerstel,Holly Waterman,Francisco Soriano Rico,Jens Holtvoeth,Carmen Cabrera Martel,Ruymán Federico Armas Fuertes,Concepción J Fagundo García,Kerstin Botsch,Angela Jones,Kaja Lotman,Majda Odar,Cati Sánchez ,Tomasz Zwijacz‐Kozica ,Nicola Jones

doi:10.3390/f11111214

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to many European countries imposing lockdown measures and limiting people’s movement during spring 2020. During the summer 2020, these strict lockdown measures were gradually lifted while in autumn 2020, local restrictions started to be re-introduced as a second wave emerged. After initial restrictions on visitors accessing many Nature Protected Areas (PAs) in Europe, management authorities have had to introduce measures so that all users can safely visit these protected landscapes. In this paper, we examine the challenges that emerged due to COVID-19 for PAs and their deeper causes. By considering the impact on and response of 14 popular European National and Nature Parks, we propose tentative longer-term solutions going beyond the current short-term measures that have been implemented. The most important challenges identified in our study were overcrowding, a new profile of visitors, problematic behavior, and conflicts between different user groups. A number of new measures have been introduced to tackle these challenges including information campaigns, traffic management, and establishing one-way systems on trail paths. However, measures to safeguard public health are often in conflict with other PA management measures aiming to minimize disturbance of wildlife and ecosystems. We highlight three areas in which management of PAs can learn from the experience of this pandemic: managing visitor numbers in order to avoid overcrowding through careful spatial planning, introducing educational campaigns, particularly targeting a new profile of visitors, and promoting sustainable tourism models, which do not rely on large visitor numbers.

Highlights

Nature Protected Areas (PAs) are important because of their high biodiversity value and the socio-economic benefits they provide for people [1]
The increase in visitors led to overcrowding incidents and park authorities had to introduce very quickly new social distancing measures and recommendations that would ensure that all users were able to safely enjoy the area
In the case of Swedish sites, an increase in visitors was noticed at the beginning of the pandemic, which continued throughout the summer months

Summary

Introduction

Nature Protected Areas (PAs) are important because of their high biodiversity value and the socio-economic benefits they provide for people [1]. To a certain extent, many of these benefits may be available to people from a local urban and peri-urban green space, countries designate a suite of high-quality nature protected areas that are of exceptional quality for biodiversity conservation, and provision of the above provides a wide range of benefits to people, and high profile sites such as National Parks are typically extremely popular with visitors These protected landscapes, have a crucial role in improving physical and mental health [15], assisting in the improvement of people’s wellbeing [16,17], and protecting local social and cultural values [18]. These estimates represent only a fraction of the actual value of tourism in European Protected Areas considering that Europe has over

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