Table 2.

The IUCN’s Threats Classification Scheme was adopted for interrogating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdown restrictions on biodiversity conservation in South Africa during 2020

Categories	Levels
Threats	Residential and commercial developments	Agriculture and aquaculture	Energy production and mining	Transportation and service corridors	Biological resource use	Human intrusion and disturbance	Natural system modification	Invasive species, genes and diseases	Pollution	Climate change and severe weather	Other options
Timing	Short-term (duration of State of Disaster declaration)	Medium-term (3 – 5 years)	Long-term (> 5 years)
Scope	Affects the minority of the population/ community/ habitat/ ecosystem, etc. (< 50%)	Affects the majority of the population/ community/ habitat/ ecosystem, etc. (50–90%)	Affects the whole population/ community/ habitat/ ecosystem, etc. (> 90%)
Severity	Threat reduced	Threat increased	Threat stable	Impact on threat suspected but direction unknown	New threat

Each threat may be considered with any of the options within the timing, scope and severity categories, as relevant and perceived