A review by sams84
Islands of Abandonment: Life In The Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn

5.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as Flyn recounts her travels around the world to all those places that have been changed in some way by humans and details how it is recovering and being used by new populations, including by some people. I loved how it demonstrates that for all our grandeur and belief that we are eternal, these examples show that we really aren't (as an ecologist I find this rather pleasing). Flyn covers all aspects of each site she visits, recounting its history and how it came to be developed, how it came to be abandoned, and how it has and continues to recover often in spite of what we left behind. This is an oddly uplifting look at the world, especially for those that work to protect the natural world, but should also be taken as a bit of warning for us as a species as it shows we are very much dispensable as far as nature is concerned.