Conservation Amid COVID-19 Pandemic: Ecotourism Collapse Threatens Communities and Wildlife in Morocco

¹ Ecological Engineering and Natural Resource Management Research Group, Higher School of technology of Khenifra, Sultan MlySlimane University, Morocco, BP 170 Khénifra 54000, Morocco.
² Laboratoire de recherches des sciences appliquées à l’environnement et au développement durable (SAEDD), High School of technology of Essaouira, Cadi AyyadUniversity Marrakech, Km 9, Route d’Agadir, Essaouira Aljadida BP. 383, Morocco
³ Département des sciences de gestion, Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Economiques et Sociales Agdal, Université, Mohammed V de Rabat.

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has had huge impacts on multiple industries and sectors, not just ecotourism and wildlife protection in Morocco. Ecological health and wildlife are a critical resource for the country’s tourism sector recovery. Conservation is considered as one of the industries that are hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the threats facing biodiversity and protected areas have been exacerbated during and following, the outbreak with practices such as poaching, wildlife trafficking, and forest logging activities resumed due to the country lockdown and ecotourism collapse. Conservationists should take emergency actions in the short-term to help rural communities and grassroots organizations and review waysto achieve conservation and sustainability goals in the post-pandemic era.