involuntary park

Discussing involuntary parks in the context of rising sea levels due to global warming, Sterling writes:

{{Blockquote|text=They bear some small resemblance to the twentieth century's national parks, those government-owned areas nervously guarded by well-indoctrinated forest rangers in formal charge of Our Natural Heritage. They are, for instance, very green, and probably full of wild animals. But the species mix is no longer natural. They are mostly fast-growing weeds, a cosmopolitan jungle of kudzu and bamboo, with, perhaps, many genetically altered species that can deal with seeping saltwater. Drowned cities that cannot be demolished for scrap will vanish wholesale into the unnatural overgrowth.|sign=Bruce Sterling|source="The World is Becoming Uninsurable, Part 3"Bruce Sterling, [http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/1-25/Note%2000023.txt "The World is Becoming Uninsurable, Part 3"] (Viridian Note 23)}}

While Sterling's original vision of an involuntary park was of places abandoned due to collapse of economy or rising sea-level, the term has come to be used on any land where human inhabitation or use for one reason or other has been stopped, including military exclusion zones, minefields, and areas considered dangerous due to pollution.{{cite news | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8107166.stm | work=BBC News | first=Steven | last=Duke | title=Sheep rule defunct Cyprus village | date=18 June 2009}}Cascio, J. (2005): [http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003342.html The Green Ribbon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100513000315/http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003342.html |date=2010-05-13 }}, from WorldchangingFor an example of the term used with land-mines, see [http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~puppydog/involun.htm Landmines and Involuntary parks] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605080037/http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~puppydog/involun.htm |date=2011-06-05 }}

File:Chornobyl 2013VictoriyaSantmatovaDSCN1417.JPG around Chernobyl.]]

Abandoned human settlements and developments overtaken by foliage and wild animals are known to exist in numerous locations around the world. Ghost towns, disused railways, mines, and airfields, or areas experiencing urban decay or deindustrialization may be subject to a resurgence in ecological proliferation as human presence is reduced.

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has seen the return of previously extirpated indigenous species such as boars, wolves, and brown bears, as well as a thriving herd of re-introduced Przewalski's horses.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation], by Stefen Mulvey, BBC News While wildlife flourishes in the least affected areas, tumors, infertility, and lower brain weight are reported in many small animals (including mice and birds) living in areas subject to severe contamination.{{cite journal|last1=Gunter|first1=L.P.|title=Blind mice and bird brains: the silent spring of Chernobyl and Fukushima|journal=The Ecologist|date=26 April 2016|url=http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2987598/blind_mice_and_bird_brains_the_silent_spring_of_chernobyl_and_fukushima.html|accessdate=26 April 2016}}

The former Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Denver was abandoned for years due to contamination from production of chemical weapons, yet the wildlife returned and the site was eventually turned into a wildlife refugium.{{cite web|title=Rocky Mountain Arsenal|url=http://www.fws.gov/rockymountainarsenal/|work=U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service|publisher=U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service|accessdate=1 September 2011}}

Involuntary parks where human presence is severely limited can host animal species that are otherwise extremely threatened in their range. The Korean Demilitarized Zone is hypothesized to house not only Korean tigers, but also the critically endangered Amur leopard,{{cite news|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/08/22/korea.bio.dmz/|title=Korea's DMZ: The thin green line|publisher=CNN|accessdate=2009-07-30 | date=2003-08-22}} although neither have been photographed there since the late 20th century.

While the above examples may be considered involuntary parks, Sterling's dystopian vision of an "unnatural" ecology has yet to be observed. In most observed cases, existing involuntary parks are characterized by a restoration of the pre-human ecological order, as opposed to the novel environment theorized by Sterling. {{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}

When an involuntary park develops in an urban or formerly urban location, it may become the target of urban exploration.

Other examples in Asia include:

• Cattle Island in the flood pond of Hirakud Dam, Odisha, India.
• The Frontier Closed Area in Hong Kong.
• Abandoned fishing villages preserved on Gouqi Island, Zhoushan Islands in China.
• Ujung Kulon National Park in Java formed itself on farmland devastated and depopulated by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa; it is now a maintained national park.
• Areas of the Golan Heights between Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan have become a haven for Indian wolves, mountain gazelles, wild boars, vultures, and other species due to minefields that prevent human access.{{Cite web |date=2019-04-11 |title=Making peace in the Golan Heights—between humans and wolves |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/golan-heights-peace-with-wolves |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422175140/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/golan-heights-peace-with-wolves |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 22, 2021 |access-date=2023-03-12 |website=Animals |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last1=Reichmann |first1=Alon |last2=Saltz |first2=David |date=2005-07-01 |title=THE GOLAN WOLVES: THE DYNAMICS, BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY, AND MANAGEMENT OF AN ENDANGERED PEST |url=http://www.sciencefromisrael.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1560/1BLK-B1RT-XB11-BWJH |journal=Israel Journal of Zoology |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=87–133 |doi=10.1560/1BLK-B1RT-XB11-BWJH |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |issn=0021-2210|url-access=subscription }}

Other examples in Europe include:

• The Green Line in Cyprus.
• The stringent military control of the Iron Curtain left a large corridor across Europe. Parts have never been cleared of landmines, resulting in said areas being closed off to the public, allowing wildlife to flourish. Some parts of the so-called "death strip" allowed wolves to re-establish themselves. An initiative is underway to protect this wilderness as a European Green Belt.
• Parts of the Eifel National Park, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany are closed to the public because of mines planted during the Second World War.
• The Văcărești Nature Park in Bucharest, Romania.
• Areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina affected by land mines, minefields in Croatia, and minefields in Kosovo, due to unexploded ordnance.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/lens/the-endless-war-of-land-mines-in-the-balkans.html|title=The 'Endless War' of Land Mines in the Balkans|first=Evelyn|last=Nieves|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 4, 2018}}
• The Hanbury Crater in Staffordshire, England, which was the site of the RAF Fauld explosion.
• The Zone Rouge, former First World War battlefield located at northeastern France.

Other examples in North America include:

• The White Sands Missile Range U.S. government military reservation in New Mexico. Location of the Trinity test site.
• The waterfront of Hilo, Hawaii, was stricken by two devastating tsunamis and the strip was abandoned and made into parkland.
• The land formerly occupied by a residential area in Anchorage, Alaska was cracked and disfigured beyond usefulness by the Good Friday earthquake, and was converted into a park named Earthquake Park.
• The neighborhood that formerly surrounded Love Canal, New York.
• The former U.S. navy areas of Vieques, Puerto Rico.
• Times Beach, Missouri, a town evacuated and dismantled due to dioxin contamination, now the site of Route 66 State Park.
• Red House, New York and Elko, New York, seized by the state of New York in the mid-20th century for several public works projects, including Allegany State Park, the Allegheny Reservoir and the Southern Tier Expressway. Much of the land was eventually converted to "voluntary" (official) parks, though areas of the Allegany Indian Reservation (particularly portions of former New York State Route 17) have been closed off and left to nature.
• Centralia, Pennsylvania, a town abandoned due to a coal mine fire.
• The Hanford Reach National Monument, the former buffer zone around the Hanford Site, Washington, which produced plutonium for nuclear bombs.
• Old Town Negaunee, Michigan; a portion of the town was abandoned after being undermined by local iron ore mining.

Further examples can be found around the world.

• Montebello Islands, Australia, site of nuclear tests.
• The residential red zone in Christchurch, New Zealand, where around 8000 houses in several suburbs which suffered land damage in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake were demolished and not rebuilt.{{cite web |url=https://www.ccc.govt.nz/transport/driving/red-zone-road-closures |title=Red Zone road changes |website=Christchurch City Council |date=2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308042758/https://www.ccc.govt.nz/transport/driving/red-zone-road-closures |archive-date=2016-03-08}}
• The Ecological Reserve ({{langx|es|Reserva Ecológica}}) in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, formed by a land-fill of waste material of demolished buildings dumped in the river off Costanera Sud avenue. Over time, sand and sediment began to build up and developed itself into a biodiversity sample of the native Llanura Pampeana ecosystem.

• Life After People - a documentary series speculating on what would happen to the Earth if humans suddenly disappeared
• Rabbit à la Berlin — a documentary about the zone between East and West Germany during the Cold War
• Rewilding (conservation biology)
• Urban prairie

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20010416233403/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/06/0623_korea.html "Peace prospects imperil Korea's wildlife paradise"], National Geographic
• [https://www.google.com/maps/@61.1959556,-149.9782331,581m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en Google Earth view of Earthquake Park]

Category:Parks

Category:Rewilding

Category:2000s neologisms