[lemming]

What's amazing to me is how little space is required to have a completely self-sustaining ecosystem. A 60km diameter circle just doesn't seem like a very big space to have enough plants to support "flourishing" numbers of multiple types of large herbivores, without migration, as well as all the different prey species required to keep things in balance.

Regardless of the arguments about radiation, it seems pretty clear that lack of humans is really the most important thing for animals to flourish.

[mr_toad]

Just to put things in perspective; a square kilometre can support nearly 250 cows in ideal conditions. The exclusion zone is 2827 square kilometres. Forest supports fewer animals, but on the other hand most of them are a lot smaller than cows. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many thousands of animals of all types living in the area.

With our planes, trains and automobiles 60km doesn’t seem like a long way, but try walking that distance through untracked forest. It would take days. We’re totally cut off from nature in most of our daily lives.

[lemming]

Sure, but the article talks about flourishing populations of deer, elk, and bison. I assume that means we’re talking about herds of each, all in the same space. And they have to survive over winter, which sounds pretty cold there - presumably they don’t migrate, which I guess they usually would? It’s definitely not ideal conditions.

Obviously it’s possible, but I was surprised.

[leonidasrup]

Chernobyl exclusion zone is not same as it was 40 years ago. For example in 2019 research was done on growing crop in the exclusion zone. You could even buy Atomik vodka, made with grain and water from the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49251471

In 2022 the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) in cooperation with State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management has published the initial results of the radiological remapping of the exclusion zone. The data can be used to assess which areas of the exclusion zone could be reopened for use. The start of Russian invasion halted all this activities and research.

https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/BfS/EN/2022...

[egorfine]

Actually some lands were returned back to commercial usage. The land is extremely beautiful and rich. They have even created new resorts on the former land of the Exclusion Zone. [1]

I have been a part of the working group researching possible commercial usage of contaminated land, which should not be returned into agriculture or cannot be made livable BUT is perfectly suitable for things like prison, recycling plant or launch pad for space.

[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/JU3HHsz1hHyGak9U6

[lukan]

"cannot be made livable BUT is perfectly suitable for things like prison"

That sounds a bit dark.

[egorfine]

My dream project for the Chernobyl Zone was a Norwegian style prison combined with college and completely and totally isolated from legacy soviet penitentiary system.

So that we can take younger first offenders and rehabilitate them and give them purpose in life.

Unfortunately, no one in the government we did discuss that gave any shit about the future of younger generation of Ukrainians.

[lukan]

Well, that sounds a bit nicer.

(I assume what makes it acceptable for a prison, but not "livable" is that prison inmates do not roam around, but are enclosed in a artificial compound?)

And for whether government is interested, I suppose also depends on how much more expensive it would have been?

[egorfine]

> what makes it acceptable for a prison, but not "livable" is that

Much simpler. The main concerns are digging (radioactive fallout is about 30cm deep into the ground at this point) and unmapped hot spots. Basically, there could be a patch of the land with radioactivity high enough that it has to be either deactivated or tagged out.

> government is interested

One of the cultural gaps between us, russian [1] people and western world is the vast depth is misunderstanding of the function of government. Our governments is only interested in personal enrichment and the well being of people is never a factor. Literally.

[1] as in "slavic people", not "citizens of russian federation".

[masklinn]

The European green belt is an even starker example, it’s thousands of miles long but just a few tens to hundreds meters wide in most locations, yet its stability and continuity have made it a huge wildlife conservation area.

[solstice]

thank you. TIL. Hiking the Green Belt sounds like an interesting long-term hiking project

[Tade0]

At a glance the part of it that goes along the Polish coastline is largely forests growing on the sand dunes at the coast.

The experience is mixed, as while you can find amazing places like Słowiński Park Narodowy, where due to proximity to the lake and sea light pollution is low enough to behold the Milky Way, most of that section is interrupted by footpaths for beachgoers and really busy in season.