Behind the Window: Perceiving Urban and Biodiverse Contexts During Voluntary Confinement Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The health emergency due to COVID-19 has led to vertiginous changes in the mobility of people, from mandatory confinement in some countries to voluntary confinement, as is the case in Mexico. The ways of dealing with voluntary confinement depend on the inhabited contexts. In this research, through a remote survey, we approached the perceptions of 132 citizens of Xalapa and Coatepec, Veracruz, during April and May 2020 concerning the wooded or rural and inhabited urban contexts; meanwhile, voluntary confinement was taking place. The results indicate that the inhabitants of these cities enjoy the environment they inhabit, know the type of vegetation surrounding them, and consider that they have enough space outside their houses, through whose windows they see trees, among which fruit trees stand out. In addition, they report that what they most enjoy living in the contexts during voluntary confinement is family, tranquility, and nature; instead, they do not enjoy being isolated from friends and family. We discuss whether Xalapa and Coatepec could be models of cities whose biodiverse characteristics are significant in terms of the ecosystem benefits associated with human well-being in health crises such as that caused by COVID-19.