Involuntary park

Involuntary park is a term coined by science fiction author and environmentalist Bruce Sterling to describe previously inhabited areas that for environmental or political reasons have, in Sterling's words, "lost their value for technological instrumentalism" and been allowed to return to an overgrown, feral state. Discussing involuntary parks in the context of rising sea levels due to global warming, Sterling writes:

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.Bruce Sterling, [http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/1-25/Note%2000023.txt "The World is Becoming Uninsurable, Part 3"] (Viridian Note 23)]

Examples include:

* The Green Line separating Greek and Turkish Cyprus
* The Korean Demilitarized Zone
* The Zone of alienation around the area of the Chernobyl disaster
* The White Sands Missile Range U.S. government military reservation. Location of the Trinity test site.
* The stringent military control of the Iron Curtain has left a large green corridor across Europe. An initiative is under way to protect this former involuntary wilderness as a European Green Belt.

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm "Wildlife defies Chernobyl Radiation"] , BBC
* [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/06/0623_korea.html "Peace prospects imperil Korea's wildlife paradise"] , "National Geographic"

References