Until the 19th century, the Pripyat river basin on the border between Ukraine and Belarus was a wetland and forest. As usual, people ruined everything. They burned the forest for pasture and cut down trees for wood or fuel to brew glass and vodka. By the mid-20th century, much of this industry had disappeared, and human-induced reforestation efforts refreshed the Pripyat region. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the Pripyat River exploded and caught fire, scattering radiation throughout the northern hemisphere.
This is where the change began.
Chernobyl accident: a disaster for people, a benefit for nature?
As a result, the Soviet Union evacuated more than 300,000 people from the station. Most of this area is now called the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and the old power plant is enclosed in a giant concrete sarcophagus - by the way, read how it was built. But what happened to the exclusion zone after everyone left is under discussion. For a decade, scientists exploring the area said that plant and animal life had dried up, and that the remaining crumbs of life mutated and sore. However, the latest research suggests the opposite - plants grow, and animal life is more diverse than before the accident. The exclusion zone has become a living experiment on what the world will be like after people completely destroy it and leave.
Obviously, exposing 3 billion people to clouds of radioactive strontium, iodine, cesium and plutonium was terrible. 134 emergency services in the area of the station received acute radiation sickness; 530,000 people received high enough radiation exposure to worry. Research is still ongoing on what happened to their bodies.
One effect seems undeniable: the more radioactive iodine is exposed to you, the more likely you are to have thyroid cancer and other thyroid problems. There is a disproportionate number of cases of leukemia and other cancers, as well as cataracts, among members of the cleaning team today. Fortunately, radioactive iodine-131 does not stay in place.
What's going on in the exclusion zone? Much of the coniferous forest west of the station, where radiation levels were highest, turned red and soon died; it is still called the Red or Rusty Forest. Early studies of birds and invertebrates showed population declines, and later studies confirmed the same scenario for large mammals. The radiation level could be measured by the vocal activity of the birds.
Environmentalists Anders Möller and Timothy Musso are well aware of the negative effects of radiation on the ecosystem. They found that the mutation rate in swallows is 2-10 times higher than in Italy or elsewhere in Ukraine; the same is the case with genetic damage in other plant and animal species. And they have been studying the Exclusion Zone since 1991.
Most discouragingly, after taking an inventory of the total invertebrate population in and around the Exclusion Zone, it turned out that the populations inside were smaller. The same, according to scientists, applies to birds, mammals. “We see the negative impact of ionizing radiation on free-living organisms. This applies to mammals, insects, spiders, butterflies and the like. And another question: are these populations of large mammals composed of healthy individuals? Or from individuals that are sick or ugly? This is not being researched, and this is a big question regarding the Exclusion Zone."
Other researchers using other methods have found something completely opposite. In the 1990s, a preliminary study of rodents showed that radiation did not affect the population. Twenty years later, a group of international researchers counting actual animals from helicopters found no discernible difference in the populations of elk, deer, and wild boar - and found a seven-fold increase in wolf populations - compared to similar unpolluted wildlife reserves. And this entire population has grown since the first decade after the accident.
Where does the difference come from? Perhaps animals reproduce faster than radiation kills them. “If 10% of the population were affected - and I’m not saying that it was, but if - in most cases it would not be enough to cause a decline,” writes the author of the 2015 study. "Very low mortality rates will not be enough to show up at the population level."
Are animals dying prematurely from mutation or cancer? “Most animals die during the first months of life, and those that reach maturity, for the most part, live no more than a few years. Cancer often takes a long time to develop. But this does not take into account the quality of health or life of an individual. The animals may not die from radiation, but they may develop cataracts or swelling. Their lives can be long, but unpleasant.
The methodology is also changing. Currently, some scientists use "odor stations" fueled with fatty acids that animals like to sniff. During this process, the camera turns on and takes a photo showing the approximate range of the population. Scientists have found wolves, raccoon dogs, wild boars and foxes in populations that can only be expected in regions where people do not try to kill them.
After the accident, the Exclusion Zone was re-colonized by brown bears. In the late 1990s, European scientists introduced the nearly extinct Przewalski's horse. Bison flourish there. The absence of people does not prevent these animals from growing.
The issue is balance, competing paths of life - lack of human pressure means a lush ecosystem is thriving, but radiation can weaken certain aspects of it. The problem is, nobody knows for sure how much radiation there is. Some believe that the radionuclides left on the ground got into the soil; others think that animals wandering through forests can carry these particles with them and transport them to new places. Determining the level of radiation is a problem. They also use drones to map and attach GPS collars with built-in dosimeters to animals.
These differences have side effects that explain why all of this flora and fauna is so difficult to study. In the Rusty Forest, for example, dead conifers have been replaced by deciduous trees that could better tolerate radiation, but their dead leaves are less acidic, which changes the microorganisms that live in them. “You changed the ecosystem,” says the scientist. “It's not just radiation. The factors are mixing."
Chernobyl exclusion zone is unique
All of this is important because the Exclusion Zone is unique. There are only a few other places on Earth where people used to be, but now they are not. They have become examples of a different world, despite the fact that two such zones, Chernobyl and Fukushima, are also radioactive. And this is also important. If you believe that nuclear power will be one of the key ways of producing energy without exacerbating the ongoing climate crisis on Earth, it is important to know how serious an accident at one of these nuclear power plants could be. Nuclear energy is considered an environmentally friendly source of energy - only cold water is needed - and generates a certain amount of waste, but its safety remains a highly debated issue.
Ilya Khel