Just Finished Reading: Islands of Abandonment – Life in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn (FP: 2021) [330pp] 

What happens when people leave, when they abandon a place never to return? With abandoned industrial sites, ex-war zones, urban retreat, industrial accidents and much else in mind the author of this intriguing and honestly beautifully written book tries her best to answer that question. 

As we’ve seen before with the emergence of volcanic islands it doesn’t take long before seeds arrive, insects drop out of the sky and nature begins a long and sometimes arduous process of reabsorption. Exactly the same process takes place in environments abandoned, for a whole host of reasons, by humans. Industrial sites – once a veritable hive of activity – can close almost overnight after a much sought after substance is exhausted. Leaving behind infrastructure too expensive to remove, to say nothing of potentially toxic waste areas, nature can take its time coming back. Lichens and plants hardened to extreme conditions arrive first and it isn’t long before other plants, insects and animals arrive. Even in highly toxic environments like around the Chernobyl site nature finds a way.  

Somewhat less toxic, at least in the physical, chemical, sense are areas abandoned after or because of conflict. One such is the zone created between Greek and Turkish occupied Cyprus. Sometimes only a few metres apart, in other places the ‘dead’ zone can be a kilometre or more deep. Fenced off and compete with warning signs this has prevented (most) human occupation since the shooting stopped. With broken windows, open doors and collapsing roofs the area is, slowly, taking on a surreal and other worldly appearance. The city of Detroit has this in spades. Known simply as ‘the Blight’ (a Sci-Fi post-apocalypse phrase if I’ve ever heard one) it is caused by rapid depopulation and the inability of local authorities to ‘pull back’ gracefully from earlier urban expansionism. Whole blocks, as well as the odd house or three, have been abandoned to time and the elements to decay on their own, on natures, schedule. 

One of the most interesting places the author visited, and one I need to find out much more about, is the Zone Rouge around the city of Verdun. When the Great War ended, it was decided to leave much of the devastation to its own devices. SO much explosive had been used and the ground was SO contaminated that it was swiftly agreed that the expense of reclamation wasn’t worth the cost whilst other farming areas could, at least theoretically, recover. It took a long time for nature to come back in this zone and there are still some areas – described in a spooky almost horrific manner – where nothing can live, not even the most extreme of the extremophiles. These ‘dead zones’ are truly awe inspiring for all of the wrong reasons. 

As usual, I picked up this volume because it ‘looked interesting’. I was most definitely not disappointed. Not only does the author write in a beautiful manner (I can’t really describe it otherwise), she’s also brave enough to travel to some of these zones – a few of which would definitely give me second or indeed third thoughts! - and report back what she saw. On top of this there’s a lot of discussion of what exactly we’re doing to our planet, our effects on nature and other life forms, our effect on the climate and how it's going to (inevitably) bite us in the ass and much else besides. She has some interesting guides to some of the zones – the ones she doesn’t ‘invade’ on her own (without official permission) - with their own stories of retreat, decay and regrowth. It is, as you might imagine, a fascinating subject especially when we consider both climate-based mass-migration and the abandonment of areas in the future due to population decline. One particular interesting thing was the fact that SO much agricultural land has been abandoned over the last 50 years that regrowth has actually made a significant impact on the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere thereby slowing down Global Warming. I’ll definitely be picking up her previous book – a completely different topic: tracing her family history back to the original colonisation of Australia. Highly recommended and one of the highlights of the year.