Impacts and Measures of COVID-19 on Forest Development

Abstract

The COVID-19 epidemic has disrupted human life in many ways. The governments have put in place measures to restrict human activities in order to control the development of the epidemic, which has had a number of effects. This paper briefly discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on forest development in terms of forest fires, forest management, forestry, and forest tourism. This paper illustrates the impacts by giving examples from countries in North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Among these regions, most governments delayed fire prevention due to the need to control the epidemic. For forest management, due to the restriction on human activities, some forest management work have been postponed or canceled. For the forestry, demand for forest products and in import and export markets have changed. For forest tourism, because of restrictions on people's activities, significant reduction has happened in ecotourism. In addition, this paper presents the mitigation measures developed by different governments in the face of the impacts of the epidemic on forestry. most governments have undertaken targeted investment and financing measures to mitigate the impacts of the epidemic, promote forest-related businesses and trade, and provide support and assistance to local residents. Some countries are trying to use this opportunity to shift their focus to a green economy. This essay expects that governments will pay attention to the impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic on forest development and respond to mitigate the damage caused by the epidemic.