In our last international exploration of rewilding, we discussed the abandoned city of Varosha in Northern Cyprus. This week we turn to a unique singular infrastructure in the green zone of Cyprus. The divided island has been separated by the UN through what is known as the green zone, an effective no-man’s land that has thus been largely entirely untouched since the conflicts in 1974.

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Urban Rewilding: The Dead City of Varosha

LettsSafari was invited to explore the abandoned Famagusta neighbourhood of Varosha as a part of its urban rewilding series. We discovered an urban setting overrun by nature that speaks to our relationship with rewilding and wildlife. It has become a fascinating example of nature taking over from man. And of man’s demise…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · Sebastian

Nicosia Airport was the major airport of the entire island prior to 1974. Constructed in the colonial era, it was a major focus of both side’s military campaigns throughout the ‘74 conflict. Now though it has become somehow ignored by human life, and thus an incredible example of our modern and urban world after we may be gone.

The Airport and surrounding buildings have become overrun by nature, wildlife and animals. It could prove a fascinating case study for rewilding corners of industrial sites and military bases.

From the outside the airport buildings look simply abandoned, with little signs of any life inside. The decaying structures nevertheless reflect an interesting contemplation, revealing that while nature is left abandoned by man it is able to thrive and become resurgent, when man made structures are abandoned, they simply deteriorate. That said, the concrete streets that no longer see the mass traffic they surely experienced in the past, are slowly being broken up by tufts of tall grasses and versatile weeds.

Inside the airport though already the technologies and inventions of man have begun being overrun by nature. A turnstile you would have once been expected to pass through each time you went to your plane, has been so unused that now grasses and weeds climb higher than it, presenting a greater barrier to you than even the former turnstile.

We can only imagine the volume and diversity of wildlife in this place and its surroundings. Left to their own devices like ‘a night at the museum’. From decay to natural restoration to a new habitat brimming with biodiversity - the cycle of life once we step aside. Rewilding in its purest form.

Further inside the airport some other signs of the ability for nature to increasingly overwhelm man’s constructions are spotted. Outside what would have been a mosaic window for bored waiting passengers has now grown an incredible bundle of brambles, bushes and grasses. The young hedgerow strikes you with the size it has already reached, and the way that the plant will potentially begin rising above the man made constructions behind it. It reminds us of LettsSafari’s wildlife biodomes - carefully constructed by man.

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However, perhaps the most stunning and thought-provoking site in the airport comes someway down the runway. While most of the aircraft and vehicles had long since abandoned the airport with humanity, however two planes, intended to transport a number of soldiers into the conflict have been left decaying at the airport. The planes are both riddled with gunshots and hallmarks of war, of the tragedy that accompanied their original arrival.

While one of the planes did make it onto the tarmac of the runway, another did not, and was left caught in something of a ditch by the runway. As a result it has become a truly natural piece. The plant life and growth surging throughout have almost completely engulfed it. The plane, once a symbol of man’s domination of nature’s most hard to reach domain, the sky, has now been returned to nature, becoming almost a strange and incredible dead-hedging material.

Overall, visiting the abandoned airport of Nicosia is incredibly similar to visiting Varosha. Both sites have become insights into the future of a world abandoned by man, of a world of modern innovation and human construction retaken by the nature we have forsaken in order to build that world. We do not need to imagine a dystopian future in this remarkable place - it is all around.

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