Culture Lockdown, Nature Freedom: Respite for Biodiversity during the COVID Pandemic – A Limited Case Study in La Union, Philippines

In dealing with treatment regimes for planetary health, a more nuanced approach to isolate the dialectics of nature-humanized and humans-naturalized may be possible by looking at case studies and areas of interest where the interregnum in human activities (culture lockdown) may have become an opening for biodiversity recovery. Such a recovery may best be characterized as nature freedom– a true instance of freedom in the Anthropocene. As quaternary consumers, the Kali or Brahminy kite serves as a beacon, signaling areas with intact biodiversity pyramids. The presence or absence may be a cue to the state of illegal wildlife trade and habitat loss in an area. The paper will present Kali or Brahminy kite observations logged using consumer off-the-shelf remotely piloted aircraft systems (COTS-RPAS) and compare this data with easing COVID-19 pandemic lockdown restrictions in La Union Province in the Philippines. As our communities transition to the new normal that looks a lot like the old normal, subordination of nature is once again the gameplay of autonomous humans.


Introduction
In his 2021 publication (pages 118-135), Andrew Dobson stated that, COVID-19 is an Anthropocene event. Research suggests that the Anthropocene takeover of the planet is at the heart of zoonotic (species-jumping) diseases and their spread (Vidal, 2020).  is not the first Anthropocene pandemic (the 1918 virus, e.g., had similar origins), but it is the first to be experienced, self-or semiconsciously, as a species-level, planet-wide event. The speed, nature, and extent of the human penetration of complex biophysical webs are also increasingly transformative, making COVID-19, if not unique, then at least the highest expression so far of our Anthropocene animal (heteronomous) condition. Logging, mining, population growth, deforestation, forest roadbuilding, and population increase are taking us into ever more remote parts of the planet and drawing ever more 'exotic species' into the web of human contact and commerce.
Indeed, dialectical analysis shows that as we increasingly humanize nature, we also increasingly see nature naturalizing humans. Given the dialectics of nature and culture, let us shift gears and revisit the trophic levels of a consumer pyramid.
Arguably fourth-level or quaternary consumers in an ecosystem are good indicators of intact biodiversity. In this illustration (see Figure 1), note that raptors in the environment serve as a beacon to biodiverse environments with intact producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers. The presence of quaternary consumers like raptors can be a good proxy for flourishing ecosystems (see Canilao, 2023  Arguably, the Kali has advanced into more visible places during the height of the lockdown when human presence outside is highly reduced due to community quarantines and a high rate of active COVID cases. The

Kali has come out and enjoyed areas that are typically saturated with human presence (author's emphasis).
At the time of maximal sightings, the Kali was seen sunning on a ridge near the Baroro delta that is tucked in between human settlements and farms. On 22 January 2022, a brood of eighteen (18) Kali individuals was seen on this ridge. For the recording period, this was the greatest number of Kali individuals sighted in the area. In this paper, I use 13 data points on Kali or Brahminy kite sightings that appear to correspond to two crest and trough periods from January to June 2022 and August 2022 to February 2023 (see Figure 4). The periods crested on months when COVID active cases in La Union were high, and brahminy kite sightings were also high. The periods trough on months show low active COVID case counts and low Brahminy kite sightings. After the January sighting, it can be noted that while the visits were conducted regularly on an almost daily basis, the average monthly sightings show a noticeable decline from January to June 2022. A slight increase in sightings was seen at the beginning of the second period of recording from August 2022 to February 2023 but declined later on. Correlation analysis was undertaken on two variables; brahminy kite sightings and COVID active cases.  Nonparametric correlation was the route pursued due to the characteristics of the data. As a precursor, continuous data points were transformed into ranked, ordinal data. Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho nonparametric correlation was computed (see Figure 6). Significant correlations of active COVID cases and brahminy kite sightings were at the 0.05 level

Conclusion
It appears that the pandemic was a respite for biodiversity as epitomized by the propagation of quaternary consumers, notably the kali or Brahminy kites in the Baroro River delta of La Union. The end of lockdowns ushered in by increasing vaccination of La Union residents ("back to normal") and the reduction in total active cases of COVID correlates to decreasing Brahminy kite sightings in Baroro River Delta La Union. Sightings of Kali were maximal during the beginning of two periods in the study when community lockdowns were in place at La Union due to numerous active cases of COVID.
There was a decrease in the sightings as lockdowns were lifted due to a reduction in the number of active COVID cases.

Secondary Analysis
This study is very preliminary in nature and was able to get a glimpse at two periods of crest and trough correlating to total active cases and Brahminy kite sightings that covered 13 months (one year) from 2022 to 2023. There is a need to compare the analysis with other quaternary species data on other research sites. At the moment, the analysis can only present the case in the Baroro delta of La Union over that one-year period.