Involuntary park
Encyclopedia
Involuntary park is a neologism coined by science fiction author and environmentalist Bruce Sterling
to describe previously inhabited areas that for environmental, economic or political reasons have, in Sterling's words, "lost their value for technological instrumentalism" and been allowed to return to an overgrown, feral state.
, Sterling writes:
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.
n vision of an "unnatural" ecology has not been observed. Rather, the Chernobyl disaster area
where such a state would be expected to be found due to radioactive contamination, has seen the return of long gone natural animals such as boar
s, wolves, bear
s and a thriving herd of released Przewalski's Horse
s. The former Rocky Mountain Arsenal
, Denver, CO 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.
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
to describe previously inhabited areas that for environmental, economic or political reasons have, in Sterling's words, "lost their value for technological instrumentalism" and been allowed to return to an overgrown, feral state.
Origin of the term
Discussing involuntary parks in the context of rising sea levels due to global warmingGlobal warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, Sterling writes:
They bear some
small resemblance to the twentieth century's national parkNational parkA national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
s, 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.
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.
Real life involuntary parks
Real life examples do indeed fulfil the description of "green" and "full of wild animals", but Sterling's dystopiaDystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n vision of an "unnatural" ecology has not been observed. Rather, the Chernobyl disaster area
Zone of alienation
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone, which is sometimes referred to as The Chernobyl Zone, The 30 Kilometer Zone, The Zone of Alienation, or simply The Zone The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone, which is sometimes referred to as The Chernobyl Zone, The 30 Kilometer Zone, The Zone of...
where such a state would be expected to be found due to radioactive contamination, has seen the return of long gone natural animals such as boar
Boar
Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...
s, wolves, bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
s and a thriving herd of released Przewalski's Horse
Przewalski's Horse
Przewalski's Horse or Dzungarian Horse, is a rare and endangered subspecies of wild horse native to the steppes of central Asia, specifically China and Mongolia.At one time extinct in the wild, it has been reintroduced to its native habitat in Mongolia at the Khustain Nuruu...
s. The former Rocky Mountain Arsenal
Rocky Mountain Arsenal
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal was a United States chemical weapons manufacturing center located in the Denver Metropolitan Area in Commerce City, Colorado...
, Denver, CO 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.
Examples of involuntary parks
- The Green Line separating Greek and Turkish Cyprus
- The Korean Demilitarized ZoneKorean Demilitarized ZoneThe Korean Demilitarized Zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and...
- The Zone of alienationZone of alienationThe Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone, which is sometimes referred to as The Chernobyl Zone, The 30 Kilometer Zone, The Zone of Alienation, or simply The Zone The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone, which is sometimes referred to as The Chernobyl Zone, The 30 Kilometer Zone, The Zone of...
around the area of the Chernobyl disasterChernobyl disasterThe Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine , which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow... - The Frontier Closed Area in Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
- The White Sands Missile RangeWhite Sands Missile RangeWhite Sands Missile Range is a rocket range of almost in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR includes the and the WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range...
U.S. government military reservation. Location of the Trinity testTrinity testTrinity was the code name of the first test of a nuclear weapon. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the new White Sands Proving Ground, which incorporated the Alamogordo Bombing...
site. - The stringent military control of the Iron CurtainIron CurtainThe concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
has left a large green corridorWildlife corridorA wildlife corridor or green corridor is an area of habitat connecting wildlife populations separated by human activities . This allows an exchange of individuals between populations, which may help prevent the negative effects of inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity that often occur within...
across EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. An initiative is under way to protect this former involuntary wilderness as a European Green BeltEuropean Green BeltThe European Green Belt initiative is a grass-roots movement for nature conservation and sustainable development in the area of the former Iron Curtain. The term refers to both an environmental initiative as well as the area it concerns. The initiative is carried out under the patronage of the IUCN...
. - The waterfront of Hilo, Hawaii was stricken by two devastating tsunamiTsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
, and the strip was abandoned and made into parkland. - The land formerly occupied by a residential area in Anchorage, AlaskaAnchorage, AlaskaAnchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
was cracked and disfigured beyond usefulness by the Good Friday EarthquakeGood Friday EarthquakeThe 1964 Alaska earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan Earthquake, the Portage Earthquake and the Good Friday Earthquake, was a megathrust earthquake that began at 5:36 P.M. AST on Good Friday, March 27, 1964...
, and was converted into a park named Earthquake Park. - The former Rocky Mountain ArsenalRocky Mountain ArsenalThe Rocky Mountain Arsenal was a United States chemical weapons manufacturing center located in the Denver Metropolitan Area in Commerce City, Colorado...
and the former Rocky Flats PlantRocky Flats PlantThe Rocky Flats Plant was a United States nuclear weapons production facility near Denver, Colorado that operated from 1952 to 1992. It was under the control of the United States Atomic Energy Commission until 1977, when it was replaced by the Department of Energy .-1950s:Following World War II,...
, both of which were sites of manufacturing plants near Denver which were heavily contaminated and which subsequently were converted into wildlife refuges. - The neighbourhood that formerly surrounded Love CanalLove CanalLove Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the white collar LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue...
. - The former U.S. navy areas of Vieques, Puerto RicoUnited States Navy in Vieques, Puerto RicoThe United States Navy used Vieques, Puerto Rico for naval training and testing from 1941 to May 1, 2003.Some current studies show drastic increases in health problems which may or may not be related to toxic materials left on Vieques from the Navy’s occupation. The people of Vieques demand the U.S...
. - Montebello IslandsMontebello IslandsThe Montebello Islands, also known as the Monte Bello Islands, are an archipelago of around 174 small islands lying north of Barrow Island and off the Pilbara coast of north-western Australia. Montebello is Italian for "beautiful mountain"...
, Australia, site of nuclear tests. - Times Beach, Missouri, a town evacuated and dismantled due to dioxinDioxinPolychlorinated dibenzodioxins , or simply dioxins, are a group of organic polyhalogenated compounds that are significant environmental pollutants. They are commonly but inaccurately referred to as dioxins for simplicity, because every PCDD molecule contains a dioxin skeletal structure as the...
contamination, now the site of Route 66 State ParkRoute 66 State ParkRoute 66 State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Missouri, located on the former site of the town of Times Beach. It is a 419 acre park located less than one mile east of Eureka....
. - The Ecological ReserveBuenos Aires Ecological ReserveBuenos Aires Ecological Reserve, Reserva Ecológica de Buenos Aires, also known as Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve, Reserva Ecológica Costenera Sur, is a tract of low land on the Río de la Plata riverbank located on the east side of the district of Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires CBD,...
(Reserva Ecológica) in the city of Buenos AiresBuenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, 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.
External links
- "Peace prospects imperil Korea's wildlife paradise", National Geographic
See also
- Rabbit à la BerlinRabbit à la BerlinRabbit à la Berlin is a 2009 documentary film, directed by Bartek Konopka. The script was written by Konopka and Mateusz Romaszkan, and the movie was a joint German-Polish production with the producers Heino Deckert and Anna Wydra. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2010 for "Best Documentary, Short...
— a documentary about the zone between East and West Germany during the Cold War