Prepare for the ‘anthropulse’: Surge in travel after Covid to have huge environmental impact, warn scientists

Increase in human movement as restrictions eased expected to exceed pre-pandemic levels and take toll on natural world

Are the days when ‘nature is healing’ now behind us? (Getty)

You may already have heard of the "anthropause," the global decline in activity caused by lockdowns and other Covid-19 restrictions.

Now, scientists say, the world may be on the cusp of an "anthropulse".

Named by Professor Christian Rutz, from the University of St Andrews, who also coined the term anthropause, the anthropulse refers to a boom in activity as pandemic rules are lifted and people travel more freely.

This would likely have a negative impact on the natural world, as traffic, flights, industrial and commercial activities all rise, leading to greater levels of greenhouse gas emissions and other kinds of pollution.

While the expression "nature is healing" gained currency during lockdowns, the opposite may be the case as the anthropulse takes effect.

"As restrictions are gradually being lifted, a surge in travel activity beyond pre-pandemic levels – or ‘anthropulse’ – seems imminent," the St Andrews team said.

Professor Rutz has called for coordinated action to study the impacts. He said that measuring the effects of pauses and pulses in human mobility on wild animals and their environments will help us plan for a more sustainable future.

With people keen to make up for time lost over the last two years, and planning to see friends and family, or enjoy an overdue holiday, “this could cause a global spike in human mobility,” said Prof Rutz.

Professor Richard Primack, a conservation biologist from Boston University in the US, said: “The pandemic caused endless suffering but, as scientists, we simply cannot afford to miss the opportunity to assess the environmental consequences of these pauses and pulses in human mobility.”

Dr Marlee Tucker, a movement ecologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands, who collaborates with Prof Rutz on several animal-tracking projects, said: “There are very important lessons we can learn for conservation biology and environmental planning.

"We are doing this work to search for innovative ways of mitigating adverse environmental impacts.”

One such project is already underway. The Covid-19 bio-logging initiative is a project which Professor Rutz helped launch in May 2020, and investigates wildlife movements before, during and after Covid-19 lockdowns.

Using data collected with tiny animal-attached electronic devices called "bio-loggers", the team has amassed more than one billion GPS location records for some 13,000 tagged animals from all around the world – including birds, mammals and a variety of marine species.

The research team said they hope to understand better how different aspects of human activity affect the natural world, including the movements of people, various types of motorised traffic, and associated pollution levels.

Ultimately, they hope, this period of crisis may allow humanity to identify a clear path towards building a more sustainable future.

The research is published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment.