Synthesis and its implication for post-COVID-19 conservation management
The potential of ecotourism as a tool for improving human-bat relations was explored in this study. Specifically, our study showed the effectiveness of short-term engagement approach such as bat-watching by increasing tourists’ awareness and conservation willingness towards bats. We noted varying levels of knowledge and public perceptions towards bats and the association with sociodemographic backgrounds. But most importantly tourists’ conservation willingness towards bat conservation was driven by their knowledge of bat ecosystem services, and their perception of the conservation relevance of bat cave watching. Our findings conform to one of the paradigms (i.e., to affect nature conservation) of genuine purpose and application of ecotourism (e.g., Ross and Wall 1998). However, further work is needed, as we only targeted urban tourists using key knowledge indicators. Further, in-depth and comparative studies (e.g., different geographic and cultural backgrounds) on conservation effectiveness of ecotourism to raising conservation willingness and interest should be developed. Our findings showed that the majority of the tourists perceive bats positively. It is critical to take note that public behaviour towards wildlife may change depending on the current societal and economic trends (Manfredo et al. 2003). Although bats were previously feared due to their association with disease, this has exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic (Zhou et al. 2020). The fear-mongering portrayal by various media platforms has spread more rapidly than the virus itself and has led to a public backlash and calls for colony executions (Zhao 2020). The global bat conservation community expects significant changes in public behaviour towards bats, which may hamper conservation. Thus, we suggest that a survey on tourist’s perception and behaviour towards bats in the post-COVID-19 period would enable further measures to be developed to improve people’s perceptions of bats, and thus enable conservation biologists and tourism managers to develop appropriate measures ensuring the protection of bats and facilitate sustainable tourism.
Bat conservationists and science communicators thus need to take this as an important measure to counter misinformation, bolster or restore positive connections between human and bats in the post-COVID-19. Prudent and unprejudiced framing of information should be emphasised when communicating about bats and COVID-19 issues to the public (see MacFarlane and Rocha 2020). Primarily, conservation communication should highlight comprehensible information about ecological and economic roles of bats, the human-bat disease dimensions, and the role of human activities (e.g., wildlife meat trade and habitat destruction) on increased disease risks. Effectively and positively engaging humans with bats will be key to their effective conservation, here we demonstrate that ecotourism can play that role and could enable a better and safer co-existence for both taxa.