ABSTRACT
The global pandemic emergent from SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19) has continued to cause both health and socio-economic challenges worldwide. However, there is limited information on the factors affecting the dynamics of COVID-19, especially in developing countries, including African countries. In this study, we have focused on understanding the association of COVID-19 cases with environmental and socioeconomic factors in Zambia - a sub-Saharan African country. We used Zambia's district-level COVID-19 data, covering 18 March 2020 (i.e., from first reported cases) to 17 July 2020. Geospatial approaches were used to organize, extract and establish the dataset, while a classification tree (CT) technique was employed to analyze the factors associated with the COVID-19 cases. The analyses were conducted in two stages: (1) the binary analysis of occurrences of COVID-19 (i.e., COVID-19 or No COVID-19), and (2) a risk level analysis which grouped the number of cases into four risk levels (high, moderate, low and very low). The results showed that the distribution of COVID-19 cases in Zambia was significantly influenced by the socioeconomic factors compared to environmental factors. More specifically, the binary model showed that distance to the airport, population density and distance to the town centres were the most combination influential factors, while the risk level analysis indicated that areas with high rates of human immuno-deficient virus (HIV) infection had relatively high chances of having many COVID-19 cases compared to areas with low HIV rates. The districts that are far from major urban establishments and that experience higher temperatures have lower chances of having COVID-19 cases. This study makes two major contributions towards the understanding of COVID-19 dynamics: (1) the methodology presented here can be effectively applied in other areas to understand the association of environmental and socioeconomic factors with COVID-19 cases, and (2), the findings from this study present the empirical evidence of the relationship between COVID-19 cases and their associated environmental and socioeconomic factors. Further studies are needed to understand the relationship of this disease and the associated factors in different cultural settings, seasons and age groups, especially as the COVID-19 cases increase and spread in many countries.
ABSTRACT
The global pandemic due to COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2) has brought significant disruption to society and the environment. In this study, evidence from newspapers, social media, remote sensing and organisational data were used to assess the impact of national lockdown on forest and wildlife conservation, including the forest-dependent people in Bangladesh. The nationwide lockdown worsened the non-forest income-generating activities of the forest-dependent communities leading to increased pressure on neighbouring forests. Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) data reveal spurred deforestation alerts in May 2020, and about 222 ha forest area had been cleared during January to October 2020, which is 8% more than the whole year of 2019. Despite some positive information about the free movement of wildlife in the forest, a total of 112 animals were killed, which is 28 times more than that of the same lockdown period in 2019. At the same time, wildlife rescuing plummeted by more than 40%. Complete banning of tourism activities brought a significant reduction in income and employment, leading to the collapse of the tourism industry. Lack of tourists, on the other hand, brought a blessing to the wildlife, allowing them to roam freely. Both air and water quality were improved in Dhaka city, and increased aquatic wildlife activities were recorded in the major rivers. The forest department's revenue shrank substantially during the lockdown period in Bangladesh more than that of the previous year. This study highlighted a substantial impact on all aspects of forest and wildlife conservation and on the forest-dependent people, which might be a pitfall for attaining the achievements of national and international conservation goals and treaties. It furthermore highlighted policy implications that would be effective in minimising pandemic-wrought threats and maintain and foster conservation activities in different forests in Bangladesh.