Barbed Wire and Biodiversity

Patrick Burns

It is a sobering reality that the best protection for the environment is no people.

When talking about the population and environment, it's sometimes tough to explain how a planet already gut-shot with population and pavement may be further harmed by the addition of another 10 million, 100 million, or 1 billion people.

One way to present the impact of population growth on the environment is to go in the other direction: explain what happens when people and livestock are suddenly excluded from an area for many years.

Across the world today we can find landscapes that have-for a variety of unfortunate reasons-been systematically depopulated for decades at a time.

Sometime this is due to border conflicts or strife, sometimes it is due

to military installations, and sometimes it is due to nuclear or chemical contamination.

In almost every case, as soon as humans and captive livestock disappear, wildlife rapidly returns.

It is a sobering reality that almost no amount of barbed wire, spent fuel rods, PCBs, landmines or live ammo is as dangerous to wild animals as the mere presence of humans.

Let me be clear: the point is NOT that we need more bio-hazard areas in the world, but that people-in and of themselves-have a clear, and almost always negative, impact on wild places and wildlife.

With a world population of 6.5 billion today, and the addition of 3 billion more people expected over the course of the next 50 years, the bio-hazard of human population growth can only be expected to grow in the years ahead. If you care about wild place and wildlife, you cannot afford to ignore the speed of world population growth.

• Chernobyl, Ukraine: Prior to 1986, the area surrounding Chernobyl, Ukraine was an agricultural area populated by about 135,000 people. After an uncontained nuclear power plant accident, however, livestock and crops across a vast area were systematically destroyed, and all of the people within a 2,800 mile area around the Chernobyl plant were evacuated. With the removal of humans from the Chernobyl area has come the return of some of Europe's most endangered species, including lynx, wolves, cranes, beaver, eagles, hawks, wild boar, roe deer, badger, and otters. Populations of human-dependent animals, such as rats, house mice, sparrows and pigeons, has declined. While some folks may imagine that the Chernobyl site must be filled with two-headed frogs, radioactive fish, and sterile deer, scientists have found relatively few visible wildlife side-effects. Dr. Ron Chesser, a senior research scientist and genetics professor at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) in Aiken, South Carolina notes that "There are no monsters. The Chernobyl zone is actually a very beautiful place with thriving wildlife communities. Without a Geiger-counter, you wouldn't know you were in a highly contaminated place."
  
  
• The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ): The Korean Demilitarized Zone is about 2.5 miles wide and 155 miles long, stretching across the entire length of the Korean Peninsula and making it one of the largest unmanned areas in northeast Asia. Festooned with barbed wire, landmines, tank traps, sensors, automatic artillery, and patrolled by scores of thousands of soldiers with "shoot-to-kill" orders. The Korean DMZ is also home to hawks, eagles, antelope, two kinds of rare cranes, frogs, black bears, and roe deer. The DMZ is also rumored to be home to the last Korean tigers on Earth. In total, more than 20,000 migratory fowl utilize the DMZ border area which encompasses a broad cross-section of Korean ecosystems and landscapes. Some environmentalists fear that a reunification of the two Koreas might spell doom for this vibrant ecosystem, and are urging that steps be taken now to reduce the impact of future roads, bridges and train corridors that might link the two countries.
  
  
• U.S. Military Weapons Production Facilities: Military weapons production facilities have resulted in the creation of large "no man" zones within the U.S. In Washington State, for example, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was created as part of the WWII-era Manhattan Project. Today the 586-square mile site is one of the most contaminated
  
  
• spots on Earth due to nuclear waste, but it also contains the best undisturbed "shrub-steppe" habitat in the Columbia River basin, and the only un-dammed stretch of the Columbia River. The healthiest populations of wild chinook salmon on the river system can be found along the Hanford Reach, and more than 200 species of birds and more than 40 rare plants and animals, such as the long-billed curlew, call it home.
  
  
• In Colorado, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (which produced and stored vast quantities of chemical weapons) systematically kept out humans for more than 40 years. As a result, the 10-square mile Rocky Flats complex has been described as "a rare biological treasure"-one of the last remaining Front Range open spaces with natural prairie grassland-while the Rocky Mountain Arsenal has thriving colonies of prairie dogs and over 100 over-wintering bald eagles, as well as trophy-sized mule deer and impressive populations of ferruginous hawks, burrowing owls and mountain plovers.
  
  
• In Georgia, a 300-square-mile property along the Savannah River was set aside for nuclear research and development more than 50 years ago. For most of the Cold War this site produced plutonium and tritium for atomic bombs. While a small part of the complex remains heavily contaminated, most of the area was left in pristine condition as a security buffer zone-an area that today is home to more than 240 species of birds, 100 species of reptiles and amphibians, and nearly 100 species of freshwater fish. Because Savannah River wildlife was left alone to mature, many state record holders have been caught or trapped here, including the largest South Carolina alligator ever caught (13 feet) and the largest South Carolina largemouth bass. Despite jokes about "glowing frogs," University of Georgia's Whit Gibbons says there is no evidence to date of genetic damage to wildlife. "It's a pretty simple formula," he notes, "The best protection for the environment is no people."