Forest Attendance in the Times of COVID-19—A Case Study on the Example of the Czech Republic

Vilém Jarský, Petra Palátová, Marcel Riedl, Daniel Zahradník, Radek Rinn and Miroslava Hochmalová
Additional contact information
Vilém Jarský: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Praha, Czech Republic
Petra Palátová: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Praha, Czech Republic
Marcel Riedl: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Praha, Czech Republic
Daniel Zahradník: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Praha, Czech Republic
Radek Rinn: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Praha, Czech Republic
Miroslava Hochmalová: Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Praha, Czech Republic

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic affected people all over the world, including the Czech Republic (CZ). In the CZ, a number of measures were applied in 2020 to reduce the contact between people and their mobility. This article dealt with the importance of forests during the pandemic. Data from 2019 and 2020 were compared. The qualitative data were obtained from two nationwide surveys, the first focused on forest attendance and forest fruit collection (about 1000 respondents per year), the second on the motivation to visit the forests (about 3700 respondents per year). The quantitative data were obtained on the regional level by analysing data from mobility counters. The impact of government restrictions was assessed. Findings: (1) there was a significant increase in the number of people who frequently visited the forest in 2020; (2) in 2020, the amount of households that collected forest fruits increased and was the highest for the monitored period; (3) the increased forest attendance significantly corresponded to the government restrictions. The analysis confirmed the great importance of forests for the citizens and, at the same time, the increased pressure on the forests’ use—forest attendance and forest crops picking—(especially suburban ones) in times of COVID-19 restrictions.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; forest attendance; government restrictions; Czech Republic; payments for ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2529/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/5/2529/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:5:p:2529-:d:755592

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().