Conservation in the maelstrom of Covid-19 – a call to action to solve the challenges, exploit opportunities and prepare for the next pandemic

As we sit in the vortex of the Covid19 outbreak, individual energies are focused on staying safe and juggling the personal, social and financial impacts of the pandemic and political responses to it. These impacts are profoundly reshaping our lives, with many commentators suggesting that �normality� will be permanently redefined for all sectors of society. The future is not clear because the maelstrom is so intense that it is unlikely that the dust will settle any time soon. This pandemic will be one of the major game changers for humanity in the 21st century. The conservation impacts are set to be huge, and this is an understatement. It is remarkable how little past attention has been given to identifying the conservation impacts of human responses to pandemics and preparing for these, especially given considerable investment in global biodiversity and conservationfocused horizon scanning exercises over the last decade (e.g. Sutherland et al., 2020). Conservation scientists, practitioners and policymakers must urgently address this lack of preparation and innovate solutions to confront the challenges arising from the radically altered economics, attitudes and behaviours imposed by Covid19. Our job is to think creatively and collaboratively with other sectors of society to ensure that recent progress in implementing effective conservation and protection of nature is not lost. We must also insist that conservationists contribute to reshaping the future postCovid19 world, to ensure that potential benefits to nature conservation and protection are realized. We identify three broad challenges and a diverse set of potential positive developments that require urgent attention and strategy development. We cannot afford to sit back and wait to see what happens as the new world emerges, or to be unprepared when the next pandemic hits.