New wilderness on urban and industrial brownfields

The dynamic effects of globalisation cause constant changes of peri-urban land use and produce industrial and urban brownfields which are also po­tential places for a new, secondary type of wilderness. Today brownfields on former sites of heavy industry are well known for wild vegetation. The majority of future brownfields in urban regions will be found on small – scale commercial sites and only a few of them will be changed into public parks. The majority will have wild vegetation that is managed in a specific way to enable the reuse of the land in the future.

New wilderness for flora, fauna and habitats

Other areas for wild vegetation are created by legal regulations to compen­sate for the ecological losses of urbanisation. As a result, areas of new wil­derness are established for flora, fauna and habitat purposes. A better un­derstanding of the ecological benefits of dynamic changes to habitats has led to a change in strategy for the vegetation management of these areas (Wulf 1995) that aims at integrating natural development.

New wilderness as land reserve

New wilderness could also be situated on land that is temporarily not used, such as areas kept in reserve for urban development (especially traffic in­frastructure). Some of these sites remain unused for longer periods because changes in planning and budget problems cause delays. The natural vege­tation that develops on there could be managed as a (secondary) new wil­derness as an interim solution.

Updated: October 16, 2015 — 6:23 am