Abstract
Urban, peri-urban forests and other natural areas provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to people known as ecosystem services. Access to these areas has been linked to benefits for physical and mental health of local populations. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced many governments to impose a set of restrictions including the closure of businesses, cancelation of public events and schooling, social distancing, limitations on the size of social gatherings, and travel restrictions. During this period of restrictions, we conducted a study assessing the importance of urban and peri-urban forests and other natural areas to people living in and around the city of Burlington, Vermont, USA. We evaluated the self-reported use and changes in personal importance related to these natural areas before and during the period of restrictions. We received over 400 responses to our field survey. The results show that 69.0% of the respondents had increased or greatly increased their visitation rate to our natural areas and urban forests, and 80.6% of respondents considered that the importance of these areas, and access to them, either increased or greatly increased. Moreover 25.8% of the sample had either never, or very rarely accessed their local natural areas before the pandemic, but 69.2% of the first time or infrequent visitors reported that having access to these areas during COVID-19 as ‘very important’. People reported that these areas were important for a wide range of activities from exercise to birding, but also reported values related to reducing stress in a time of global chaos. Our results indicate the increasing demand and value of such areas in times of crisis such as COVID-19. Experts in zoonotic disease predict the potential for more frequent pandemic events, thus predicating the importance for continued funding for, maintenance of, and improved access to, natural areas to our largely urban civilization.
Highlights
Comparing the two groups of respondents, we observed that responses were very similar regarding the change in frequency of visits, where most of the respondents of both groups declared having increased or greatly increased their visits; the personal importance of these natural areas, where almost all respondents in both groups chose the option ‘important’ or ‘very important’; the change of importance of these areas after the restrictions took place, having mostly ‘increased’ or ‘greatly increased’ for both groups; and the reasons given for visiting the areas, being the most repeated reasons in both groups ‘just getting outside’, ‘exercise’, ‘connecting to nature’, and ‘peace and quiet’
The biggest differences observed between the two groups correspond to the frequency of visits prior to COVID-19, where the email lists group answered mostly that they visited 1–2 times per week, and almost nobody answered that they had never visited the areas, and the trailheads group had a more even distribution of responses across the choices given, and a considerable number of people declared that they had never been in the areas before
We found that people in our survey increased the frequency of their visits to natural areas during the COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, a result that aligns with other studies’ observations in other parts of the world [e.g. 37, 38]
Summary
The SARS-CoV-2, known as COVID-19, is a viral infectious disease that affects mainly the human respiratory system [1] and was first identified in early December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, and since it has spread rapidly becoming a global pandemic [2]. Besides the economic impact of this situation, there are increasing concerns regarding the less obvious effects on mental health. These effects are derived from isolation, disconnection, unemployment, stress, etc., and may result in long term impacts beyond the time frame of the current pandemic [see for example 6]
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