Passive rewilding

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Passive rewilding can occur in an urban environment that is left to ruin.

Passive rewilding refers to actively unmanaged, post-agricultural environments that are allowed to regain natural dominance, typically after their abandonment.[1] A type of rewilding, passive rewilding aims to restore natural ecosystem processes via minimal or the total withdrawal of direct human management of the landscape,[2][3][4][5][6] Passive rewilding allows natural processes to restore themselves, and enables a particular level of chaos as woodlands reclaim land, species to return and ecological disturbances like wildfires, pests and floods contribute to the area.[7][8]

Sometimes referred to as nature's reclamation[9] and naturalia,[10] it differs from other forms of rewilding in that direct human management is completely absent, whereby the environment is subsequently overgrown and occupied by natural elements on its own.[11] In 1998, science fiction author Bruce Sterling coined the term involuntary park to describe previously inhabited areas that for environmental, economic, or political reasons have lost their value for technological functionalism and been allowed to return to an overgrown, feral state.[12][13]

Management

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Mule deer at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, a site abandoned due to contamination from the production of chemical weapons

There are three important factors to passive rewilding; reviving trophic complexity, or biodiversity, by allowing wildlife to return (such as by limiting hunting), though in other cases it may involve resettlement. The second factor is allowing landscapes to rejoin, so in a way that plants and animals can travel around. The third component is permitting erratic disturbances such as fires, pests and floods. However, allowing nature run haphazardly and being left to chance is unacceptable to the traditional methods of ecological restoration and can be a complicated matter to accept for westerners.[7] Passive rewilding may also expand to any area of formerly actively managed land (either rural or urban) that is currently experiencing extremely limited active management or none at all.[1]

Removing sheep is one of the first steps in passive rewilding in Britain, as they can eradicate wildflowers and other essential species. Though old pig breeds can remain as a substitute for wild boars. If there is a scarcity of plants, these species are replanted to promote their spread. Fences are also removed and wetlands are created, in addition to removing non-native species.[7] A strong argument in favor of passive rewilding is the minimal cost approaches to restoration, particularly on a large scale. Though widespread forest growth can transform into a homogenous landscape, and biodiversity is generally against homogeneity. In Portugal, grazing animals such as the bison can clear land and establish open areas where biodiversity can thrive, whereas wild boars may disturb the soil as they search for food.[7] Degraded or abandoned land is actually the forefront of a global reforestation.[8]

Forest recovery has been occurring in abandoned pastures, scrubby bush and forest margins throughout Europe and North America, since nature repels an ecological vacuum and therefore hastily fills it.[8] Passive rewilding as de-management may benefit ecosystems in the United Kingdom as it liberates resources and leads to ecological consequences which benefit both wild nature and society. Evidence allows for short-medium term prognoses in passive rewilding sites in Western Europe.[1] The abandonment of agricultural land use practices drives the natural establishment of forests through ecological succession in Spain.[14] This spontaneous forest establishment has several consequences for society and nature, such as increase of fire risk and frequency and biodiversity loss.[15] Regarding biodiversity loss, research findings from Mediterranean showed that this is very site-dependent.[16] More recently, the abandonment of land is also discussed by some as an opportunity for rewilding in rural areas in Spain.[17][18]

Human settlements

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An abandoned house reclaimed by dense vegetation

In abandoned towns or villages, wildlife will rebound and recolonize abandoned human structures, such as buildings, cities, and other man-made environments (i.e. agricultural lands), when given the chance. This opportunity is as basic as humans leaving a place to be regenerated by nature.[11] Such places generally include temple ruins, which may be occupied with tree roots, quarries, to former war zones and exclusion zones that are swarming with new ecosystems.[19] In urban areas, moss covers disintegrating buildings, sand dunes engulf entire houses, and trees and animals scramble over former walkways.[20] After a lack of maintenance in buildings, the elements freely impact the structures, therefore roofs degenerate and permit rain to seep in, and walls fracture, allowing roots to permeate, and spaces open up to create fortuities for seeds to root. The walls and floors ultimately become habitats for wildlife, while windows and roofs turn into sanctuaries.[21]

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. While Bruce 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.[22][23]

Involuntary parks where human presence is severely limited can host animal species that are otherwise extremely threatened in their range. When such parks develop in an urban or formerly urban location, it may become the target of urban exploration. The aesthetics of nature's reclamation of urban buildings has acquired the attention of artists, photographers and architects alike, who are attracted to decaying structures as sources of inspiration, as they serve as a reminder of impermanence and how beauty exists even in decay.[21] Plants escaping gardens and rewilding the surrounding areas are called escaped plants, although these have detrimental effects on native species and communities, in addition to being weedy and invasive.[24]

Asia

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Roots of a Tetrameles tree reclaiming parts of Ta Prohm
Apartments in Abkhazia becoming green walls as they are reclaimed by vegetation

The once-bustling village of Houtouwan in China has been entirely reclaimed by foliage plants after residents began to leave it in the 1990s.[25] The village is also a tourist site now, where visitors can tour the abandoned, museum-like buildings.[26] Abandoned homes in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone are reclaimed by plant life, and the fauna there include Japanese macaques, common raccoon dogs, Japanese serow and red foxes.[19] Apartment blocks in Hashima Island, Japan are now overwhelmed with weeds, and dense vegetation hang off their dilapidated balconies.[27]

Ta Prohm, a 12th century temple in Cambodia, has been reclaimed by large fig, banyan and kapok trees whose roots wrap the temple walls.[19] In Hong Kong, aerial roots of over 1,100 banyan trees attach to walls and protrude through pavements and stone walls. Once called the ‘Poison Gas Island’, the island of Ōkunoshima is houses a thousand rabbits. A mall in Bangkok, which was half-demolished in 1997, now features aquatic life that flourish from the rainwater that has slowly filled the building.[26] The Korean Demilitarized Zone is hypothesized to house not only Korean tigers, but also the critically endangered Amur leopard,[28] although neither have been photographed there since the late 20th century. 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.[29]

Ross Island, South Andaman district, India, is largely abandoned and the area is now mostly consumed by the forest.[20] 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.[30][31] In Abkhazia, Georgia, the abandoned town of Akarmara is gradually being absorbed by the natural world, where forests are reclaiming the remaining apartments, and animals such as cows and pigs are found roaming the area.[32] The Al Madam village in the United Arab Emirates is a ghost town that is being reclaimed by the desert.[19] The closed off United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus has become a haven for wildlife.[33] The town of Agdam, Azerbaijan that was abandoned after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War has been overgrown with grasses and weeds.[34]

Europe

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Inchkeith in Scotland was a military defense for over 500 years and now it is home to seal pups, eider duck and European cave spiders. A former slate quarry in Wales was one of the largest producers of slate in the world before shutting down in 1969, and nature has consequentially been reclaiming the land. Chatterley Whitfield, which was a bustling coal mine in Staffordshire, is now reclaimed by buddleia, sunflowers, in addition to rabbits, foxes and badgers. Stack Rock Fort, Wales, is abandoned and reclaimed by plant life and sea birds.[19] Nunhead Cemetery, established in the Victorian era, is now occupied by green ring-necked parakeets, a fungus called dead man's fingers, and blackberry bushes growing on the graves.[11] The once-comprehensively farmed Knepp Castle Estate in West Sussex is now a habitat to numerous rare species.[7] 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.[35]

Rewilding in Vallone dei Mulini, Italy

Spreepark in Berlin, Germany, is cloaked with lush greenery, with moss covering some of the remaining rides.[36] The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has seen the return of previously extirpated indigenous species such as boars, lynxes, wolves, brown bears, and 200+ species of bird, in addition to a thriving herd of re-introduced Przewalski's horses, with streets and buildings being surrounded by overgrowth of vegetation.[37] 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.[38] The Red Forest in Polesia is now home to a wide variety of wildlife, which have thrived in the area due to the lack of human activity.[39]

Areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina affected by land mines, minefields in Croatia, and minefields in Kosovo, due to unexploded ordnance.[40] The Zone Rouge, former First World War battlefield located at northeastern France, has created unique habitats for wildlife, where nature has reclaimed the former battlefield. The winter villages in the region around Castro Laboreiro in Portugual have mostly been abandoned and forests have reclaimed them.[7] The stone buildings of Vallone dei Mulini in Sorrento, Italy, is thoroughly reclaimed by thick and dense vegetation. The valley today is a popular tourist attraction. Peneda Geres National Park in Portugal, which was a leading boar territory, before centuries of farming and human influence that made them disappear from the area. In the 20th century, wild boars and even the ibexes, which have been regionally extinct, have made a comeback to the park.[7]

Oceania and Africa

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Abandoned house in Kolmanskop reclaimed by sand dunes

The marooned wreck of SS Ayrfield in Parramatta River in Homebush has become a mangrove forest, and is therefore a protected marine vegetation critical for fish habitat. The remains of SS Yongala off the coast of Queensland is now home to hundreds of various species, that include loggerhead turtles, marbled electric rays, bull sharks and moray eels. In a village at Mangapurua Valley, New Zealand, historical farming and gardening efforts by soldiers and families indicates that most of the homes, culverts and farms in the Valley are now overrun with grass and marshes, with some fruit and rose trees surviving, indicating historical human presence.[19]

After people abandoned Kolmanskop and Elizabeth Bay, in Namibia, by 1956, the homes in the village became immersed in sand.[26]

Americas

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Ilha da Queimada Grande in Brazil was inhabited by several lighthouse watchmen, who abandoned it since the 1920s, and is now home to the highly venomous golden lancehead, bats, lizards, the southern house wren and bananaquit.[19] The Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, which was formed by a landfill of waste material, now has sand and sediment build up and it is developed into a biodiversity sample of the native Llanura Pampeana ecosystem. Rewilding has occurred at a church ruin in Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico, with solidified lava encircling it.[36] Calakmul, in the Mexican state of Campeche, is former Mayan city that is now invaded by the surrounding rainforest, and the causeways that cross the swampy land tend to support denser vegetation than the surrounding forest.[41] In Puerto Rico, American colonists, smallholder farmers and herders abandoned the sugar and coffee plantations in the region, and subsequently the trees reclaimed the fields and pastures, with forest cover returning to half (when it was just 9% after plantation).[8]

The abandoned buildings in Año Nuevo Island in Northern California are the breeding grounds for northern elephant seal, the endangered Steller's sea lion and thousands of seabirds. The Catskill Mountain House in Overlook Mountain, New York, is a modern ruin that has been reclaimed by nature.[42] Times Beach, Missouri, a town evacuated and dismantled due to dioxin contamination, is now the site of Route 66 State Park. Areas of the Allegany Indian Reservation (particularly portions of former New York State Route 17) have been closed off and left to nature. 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 refuge.[43] Similarly, the Rocky Flats Plant manufacturing nuclear weapons near Denver was also converted to a wildlife refuge following a Superfund cleanup of nuclear waste.[44]

See also

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References

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  38. ^ Gunter, L.P. (26 April 2016). "Blind mice and bird brains: the silent spring of Chernobyl and Fukushima". The Ecologist. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
  39. ^ "How Radiation is Affecting Wildlife Thirty Years After the Chernobyl Disaster". Animals. 2025-08-29. Retrieved 2025-08-29.
  40. ^ Nieves, Evelyn (April 4, 2018). "The 'Endless War' of Land Mines in the Balkans". The New York Times.
  41. ^ Braswell, Geoffrey E.; Gunn, Joel D.; Dominguez Carrasco, María del Rosario; Folan, William J.; Fletcher, Laraine A.; Morales López, Abel; Glascock, Michael D. (2005). "Defining the Terminal Classic at Calakmul, Campeche". In Arthur A. Demarest; Prudence M. Rice; Don S. Rice (eds.). The Terminal Classic in the Maya lowlands: Collapse, transition, and transformation. Boulder: University Press of Colorado. pp. 162–194. ISBN 0-87081-822-8. OCLC 61719499.
  42. ^ Yasinsac, Rob (January 12, 2000). "Overlook Mountain House". HudsonValleyRuins.org. Retrieved 11 January 2010.
  43. ^ "Rocky Mountain Arsenal". U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
  44. ^ "Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge". U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
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