I'm not sure about a moral (this surely isn't the best way to create
sanctuaries!), but there are many cases where human hostilities have
inadvertently created safe havens for wildlife. In the middle of Berlin
there is an amazing, and now well-studied, sanctuary that was a railway
terminal on the East/West border, destroyed by the Soviet occupation
forces and left as a no-mans-land, a total mess of overgrown rubble and
masonry. Long before the fall of the wall made it accessible, it had
become a notorious inner-city haven for nightingales and other birds, and
when finally explored it turned out to have an unexpectedly diverse flora
and fauna, including a rare spider with a discontinuous distribution (the
nearest population is in Spain).

On Fri, 21 Apr 1995, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> This story must have a moral in it somewhere. The Demilitarized Zone
> between the Koreas has been an important de facto bird sanctuary for some
> time now, and there are other parts of the world where social strife has
> actually led to environmental relief of a sort. Keep people out and of
> course it's good for wildlife. Is this the only way we can protect an
> area? I think the Slade Gortons of the world who are trying to reduce the
> amount and size of our protected public lands should all be shipped to the
> DMZ or the Iran-Afghan border so they can see at first hand what the only
> wildlife sanctuaries of the future will be if they have their way.
>
> Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
> Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
> University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
> Tacoma, WA 98416
>
>
>

_________________________________________________________________________
JAMES WEST|University of Washington DP-32, Seattle, WA 98195|206-543-4892