Recreation in Forests: Implications from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Forests are important to human wellbeing. Forests allow people to engage in physical activity, contribute to social integration, and help people to gain distance from everyday life. These became particularly important during COVID-19 and the number of forest visits increased remarkably. This chapter looks at how and why visits to forests changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter draws on data that was collected during the first wave of COVID-19 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. On the basis of 345 data sets, the study shows how the frequency, the duration, the motives, and the activities in forests changed during the pandemic. These findings are correlated with changes in the subjective wellbeing of respondents. The study shows that longer visits as well as more frequent visits to forests contributed to wellbeing during COVID-19. Those woking in forest administration, however, faced many unknown challenges during that time. The pandemic revealed that recreation needs to be taken into account in forest management practices in the future. Recommendations are developed which focus on participatory forest management, the inclusion of a diverse range of social groups, and prevention of use conflicts.