Places Overtaken by Nature

It doesn’t take long after a place is abandoned for nature to reclaim its land. From a mining town swallowed by the sands of a desert, to an island community willingly returned to its wild state, these 15 places demonstrate the ecological power of the earth to retake our human progress.
 

TA PROHM, CAMBODIA

Long tree roots twine over the 12th-century temple Ta Prohm, crawling through its doorways, slowing pulling apart its ornately carved stones. Unlike many of the other temples of Angkor in Cambodia, Ta Prohm has mostly been left to the jungle for centuries since its abandonment with the fall of the Khmer Empire. Conservation efforts in recent years have helped prevent a total loss of the historic site, but the root systems of the silk-cotton trees and appropriately named strangler figs continue their consumption of the sacred structures.

CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE

As with the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, after which thousands of wild boars and other animals like lynx and elks doubled their populations in the abandoned communities, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in Pripyat, Ukraine, saw ecology quickly respond to the disaster zone. Chernobyl initially had its landscapes ravaged, earning one woodland the nickname the Red Forest for the crimson needles of dying trees. But three decades on, wolves, foxes, raccoon dogs, and other animals are populous in the exclusion zone, and although deformations due to radiation were not unusual early on, there's also been recent evidence of adaptation, like birds who produce increased levels of antioxidants needed to survive.

VILLA EPECUÉN, ARGENTINA

Many drowned towns were intentionally destroyed for reservoirs; Villa Epecuén in Argentina was submerged through a freak incident in 1985 when heavy rainfall broke a dam, flooding the popular spa town. While there were no fatalities, many lost their homes, seemingly forever. Then in 2009, the weather shifted again, revealing dead trees and saltwater-faded ruins. One octogenarian returned to his town, and is now the only resident. His solitary life was featured in the 2013 short documentary Pablo's Villa.

OKUNOSHIMA, JAPAN

After a chemical weapons manufacturing site shut down following World War II, Japan’s Okunoshima island was overrun by bunnies. It’s unclear how the long-eared hordes got to the place, now nicknamed “Rabbit Island,” with some theorizing that they descended from former test subjects, and others that they were pets let loose. Whatever the case, they now number in the hundreds if not thousands, thriving in the abandoned buildings and cheerfully hopping outside the Poison Gas Museum. A popular 2014 video captured a stampede of them bouncing toward one of the many tourists drawn to the island.

SS AYRFIELD, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Called the “floating forest” (although its floating days are long behind it), the SS Ayrfield in Homebush Bay west of Sydney, Australia, supports a flourishing mangrove forest on its steel hull. Built in 1911, and with a storied past that includes transporting supplies during World War II, the vessel was decommissioned in the 1970s. It remains in the Bay due to the once-local, now-defunct, ship-breaking industry. Sometime in recent decades, nature claimed its rusted body, and trees set down roots that stretch into the water.

PETITE CEINTURE, PARIS

The Petite Ceinture, or "little belt," is an 1852 railroad that once circled Paris, until it was made obsolete by the metro and abandoned in the 1930s. Wild flowers and other plants have since grown through the train tracks and over the stone walls. Now 70 different types of animals call the nearly 20 miles home, despite the railway relics being right in the busy city of Paris. That lack of development may not be for long, though, as bars, galleries, and events are planned for this metropolitan nature haven.

ROSS ISLAND, INDIA

Much like Ta Prohm in Cambodia, India’s Ross Island is being slowly eaten by trees. However, this arboreal ingestion only started in the 1940s. Following both an earthquake and a Japanese invasion, the 19th-century English penal settlement administration buildings were abandoned, the shells of buildings later laced with roots. Deer patrol the old bunkers and bound through the ficus trees that continue to tighten their grasp on the ruins.

AÑO NUEVO ISLAND, CALIFORNIA

From 1872 to 1948, Año Nuevo Island in California served as a light station to prevent shipwrecks in the hazardous waters. After the last keeper departed and the fog horn was silenced, northern elephant seals arrived in the 1950s, and were soon joined by sea lions and seabirds. The populations are so dense, they’ve totally taken over the surviving 19th-century structures. The island is now an official wildlife preserve, with researchers being the only humans allowed.