The Pandemic Hasn't Stopped Global Warming — Scientists Say More Needs to Be Done

Thanks to Covid-19 and its global lockdowns, nature is healing — so the popular opinion goes. You might even have seen some of the op-eds and even memes about it. With planes grounded, tourism halted and normally copious consumption rates slashed, the general consensus is that the earth is finally getting a break — and maybe even starting to heal.

Dr Tessa Hempson doesn't think that's the case. Hempson is the principal scientist and programme manager of Oceans Without Borders, a non-profit dedicated to marine conservation and community development in the African region. She says that the pandemic might have helped eased the strain on the earth — but it's also opened up another Pandora's box.

"The decrease in global travel has resulted in oil and gas markets crashing quite significantly, making oil prices drop," says Hempson. "This means that it's been much cheaper to produce virgin new plastic than the more expendable alternatives to plastic — that's combined with the fact that many of us are staying home, ordering takeout... It means that we're actually generating more waste."

But Hempson doesn't want people to stop travelling entirely once the pandemic blows over; rather, she wants people to travel more consciously. She often collaborates with andBeyond, a luxe travel company focused on giving back to the environment and local communities, to create thoughtful travel programmes in Africa; in June 2022, she will host a one-off marine expedition and safari with the group.

Below, she tells us more about the impacts of Covid-19 on the planet — and why she's such a strong believer in eco-conscious travel.

Since the pandemic began, what sorts of changes have you seen on the oceans and its inhabitants?

In terms of the fishing impact on the oceans, there have been different effects at different scales on different areas in our planets. On the local level in East Africa, there's been a collapse of tourism and all their associated industries, causing loss of jobs, incomes, and livelihoods. This means that many people have likely been turning to their local environments for resources to harvest: So potentially, an increase in fishing on the coral reefs systems of East Africa.

On a global scale, the dynamics are slightly different. Particularly during the COVID lockdown when there was a complete halt on international travel, movement, and border closures, and many people were locked and staying at home for months on end — as a result, there was actually a decrease in the demand for seafood.

For example, in the US, about two-thirds of the seafood industry comes through the restaurant market, and with people staying home and not going out to restaurants, there was a 70% decrease in the demand for seafood just through that industry.

It might tide like a good news story for the ocean in terms of fishing overall, but these are really short-term gains. It's estimated that the oceans need about 10-15 years of significantly reduced fishing pressure to begin restoring the stocks to sustainable levels.

But then, on the negative side, in terms of plastics, there's quite an interesting dynamic there. The fact that there's been a decrease in global travel has resulted in oil and gas markets crashing quite significantly, making oil prices drop. This means that it's been much cheaper to produce virgin new plastic than the more expendable alternatives to plastic. That's combined with the fact that many of us are staying home, ordering takeout, buying girds and packaging to make sure that they're protected from potential infection from the COVID virus, has meant that we are actually generating more waste.

The other factor is that governments are coming under significant economic pressure due to the pandemic. They are cutting many of their elective investments; things like recycling programs have become a ‘nice to have’ rather than essential, particularly in the developing world.

Finance for recycling our waste has been cut in many places, and in parts of the developing world, where the informal sector of waste collection, so waste packers is a massive generator of livelihoods and incomes for many communities. And the fact that recycling facilities have now been shut down and no longer buying that waste from this informal sector has meant a loss of livelihoods in that space. There are several impacts of COVID on the oceans, both positive and negative, but it's one big, massive global, social and ecological experiment.

I think as we go forward, we are going to get a much better understanding of how these various factors are playing out, how they're interlinked, and how they're going to affect our oceans in the longer term.

Tourism used to be one of the factors that harmed environments — these days, it's being marketed as a way for people to help conserve it instead, through ecotourism and responsible travel. Is that really possible?

I think that ecotourism is definitely important for conserving wild environments. Most importantly because ecotourism places a value on maintaining pristine ecosystems. Without this value, it is more economically beneficial to harvest and extract resources from the land and seascapes where we operate these tourism ventures.It encourages local communities and other local operators to act responsibly towards an environment, uphold high conservation and sustainability standards, and to really ensure that their operations have the smallest, possible negative impact on the environment and also support strong positive impacts in those places.

The other thing with ecotourism is that it can potentially have really long-term positive impacts in communities and wild environments, because the establishment of a lodge in a particular place facilitates the long-term support of research and monitoring programs that many academic or research or NGO organisations never have the possibility to actually do. You get this long-term potential for research, conservation monitoring, and also the ability to establish long-term trusting relationships with local communities.

Investing in those social infrastructure, supporting communities and growing with them, can have a really long-term positive impact on the sustainability of those environments.

For example, across the andBeyond footprint — 29 lodges across three continents — and for the entire first year of hard COVID lockdown, andBeyond pledged to ensure that none of our staff were retrenched. That ensured that all of those communities had a continued consistent income to support families and networks within the communities.