Overview
- Scientists and officials describe the Chernobyl exclusion zone and the Korean Demilitarized Zone as accidental refuges where biodiversity has rebounded in the long absence of people.
- The South Korean National Institute of Ecology counts 6,168 species in the DMZ, including 38% of the peninsula’s endangered species, across a 248‑kilometer by roughly 4‑kilometer corridor kept largely free of civilian activity since 1953.
- Chernobyl’s restricted area spans about 4,000 square kilometers and remains among the most radioactively contaminated places, yet wildlife has rebounded as radiation fell to chronic low levels that still preclude long-term human living.
- Field studies report aquatic communities in highly contaminated Chernobyl lakes are as rich as those in cleaner waters, and wolf numbers inside the zone are about seven times higher than in nearby reserves.
- Experts attribute these recoveries to the lack of noise, lights, farming, logging, and chemicals, framing both places as rare natural experiments that hint at conservation gains from reducing human presence even as the DMZ stays militarized and Chernobyl stays unsafe for settlement.