Assessing Pandemic Impacts to Collaborative Management in Parks and Protected Areas

Partnerships are key in helping public land management agencies complete mission-critical conservation work and maintain agency relevancy through community engagement. While there had been a growing trend toward collaboration for many public agencies, the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the ability of volunteers and other groups to work with land management personnel. This study examined public agency personnel's reported work accomplishments with partners and perceptions of partnerships before (2019), during (2020), and the year after (2021) the pandemic. Results indicate that partnership engagement on conservation-related tasks declined during the pandemic. While the volume of work somewhat recovered in 2021, there remained impacts to the types of partners personnel worked with and to personnel's perceptions of institutional emphasis on partnerships. Implications for public agencies and their partners include increased emphasis on finding partnership 'champions' within the agency and umbrella organizations outside of the agency to facilitate partnership arrangements.