If I ask you to conjure up a vision of \u201cnature\u201d, what comes to you? For most of us, I think our minds go to the pristine. Untouched rainforests, vast savanna grasslands, deep thickets, inaccessible mountains. Somewhere remote, somewhere uncontaminated, somewhere free of the touch of humans.<\/p>\n
But those visions only represent a tiny fragment of the world\u2019s biomes. The vast majority of the natural world \u2013 including more than 90% of temperate forest \u2013 has now been occupied by humans for thousands of years. We\u2019ve radically reshaped nature with our presence, often in catastrophic ways.<\/p>\n
For this week\u2019s newsletter, we\u2019re looking at the strange ecologies of what happens afterwards. In a new Guardian series<\/a>, called The aftermath, we\u2019re examining how the natural world responds in the wake of enormous change: catastrophes, huge population shifts, eruptions, toxic spills, earthquakes or bombings. For damaged landscapes, what happens when the dust settles? And what can it teach us about how to rehabilitate ecosystems in a time of environmental crisis?<\/p>\n I first started thinking about life in the aftermath when speaking to ecologist Erle Ellis last year. Ellis has spent his career examining how humanity has shaped the planet, and was one of the lead scientists working on how the \u201cAnthropocene\u201d might be defined<\/a> as a new era of geological time.<\/p>\n Back in 2021, Ellis was one of a group of scientists who launched a study using a huge \u201chindcasting\u201d model. A hindcast works like a forecast, except it looks backwards. This one modelled how humans had interacted with Earth since the last ice age. What they found<\/a>, Ellis says, shocked him. We tend to think of the not-too-distant past as a golden time when huge swathes of nature thrived free of people. In fact, humans have been almost everywhere as far back as they could see.<\/p>\n The Civilian Control Zone (CCZ), the restricted buffer area leading up to the Korean DMZ, has become an ecological oasis. Photograph: Park Jong Beom\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Looking back 12,000 years, nearly three-quarters of Earth\u2019s land was occupied and actively shaped by human societies: farming, gardening and building, planting forests and burning. The occupied land included more than 95% of temperate and 90% of tropical woodlands. Many of the landscapes people now think of as \u201cuntouched\u201d, from the savanna lands of equatorial Africa to the deep Amazon rainforest, have already been deeply transformed by human presence.<\/p>\n This discovery should change the whole way we think about the natural world, Erle said. \u201cPeople are still imagining [nature as] this kind of pristine place that\u2019s going to be saved from people \u2013 but that is definitely a misunderstanding,\u201d he said. \u201cMost of the terrestrial biosphere that can serve as habitat for the species we have left \u2013 it\u2019s in the human landscapes. It\u2019s not out there, somewhere far away.\u201d That includes places that don\u2019t fit with our ideas of what nature should look like. Obviously it\u2019s crucial that we save the undamaged ecosystems that we have left \u2013 places like the Congo rainforest, which are of incalculable value. But if we think in terms of space, it\u2019s the places that aren\u2019t pristine that represent the biggest potential. \u201cThose places that might just seem like a wasteland? Those are the big opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s something sad about the idea that people have touched so much of the earth, but something hopeful, too: amazing ecosystems have sprung up after or alongside massive human intervention, and survived events that seemed like disaster at the time. That\u2019s why we\u2019re running a series on \u201cthe aftermath\u201d<\/a>. It examines the fascinating, often counterintuitive ways that nature can respond to massive transformation.<\/p>\n In Ukraine, we visited a vast bombed-out reservoir the size of New York City (pictured top). With the water drained away, a huge forest has grown<\/a> \u2013 but is it a return to life, or a toxic timebomb?<\/p>\n In abandoned villages across Bulgaria, I witnessed something that\u2019s happening all around the world as populations move to cities. There, scientists are discovering the unexpected ways that biodiversity can respond to total neglect<\/a>. Sometimes, the complete disappearance of humans isn\u2019t as helpful to nature as we might imagine.<\/p>\n Between North and South Korea, the demilitarised zone has become an ecological oasis<\/a> with nearly 6,000 species documented. \u201cI used to think I was the best environmentalist,\u201d says Kim Seung-ho, one of the ecologists studying the region (pictured above). \u201cBut I realised the landmines are doing more for conservation than anyone. It\u2019s ironic, no? Weapons meant for killing have become the greatest protectors of life.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Over the next year, we\u2019ll be looking at other examples around the world. These places are complex, and often it\u2019s not a simple story of recovery. Still: in the worst sites of conflict, contamination and destruction, unexpected havens can be created. What do they have to teach us about how to rehabilitate the natural world?<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n