Research

Wildlife has returned to Chernobyl

Head of Biological Sciences, Professor Jules Pretty has had an article about how wildlife has returned to the devastated area around Chernobyl published in the April issue of BBC Wildlife magazine.

His report, ‘A tale of two cities,’ focuses on changes in the Chernobyl evacuated exclusion zone twenty years after the April 1986 accident.

The article follows his trip to the zone last summer where he visited the now-deserted town of Pripyat, once home to 49,000 people. While working with local scientists, Professor Pretty found that the net ecological effect on biodiversity in the region has been positive and that growth flourished from 1990 onwards.

Pripyat before the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl

Before the accident, just 20 per cent of the region was forested, now it is 80 per cent and increasing. A total of 240 species of animals have been counted within the exclusion zone, most of which were present only in low numbers before the disaster.

Where buildings once dominated, streets and open areas have been taken over by trees

Professor Pretty concludes his report: ‘This exclusion zone now contains some elements of a modern parable that we may have to become more used to - the ecological and social consequences of the sudden abandonment of a whole town or city, and the reinvasion of nature.’

Sociology researcher goes to Vietnam

Sociology’s Dr Pam Cox is to spend the next three months in Asia, after receiving funding from The British Academy for her latest project: Girls and the Politics of Protection in Vietnam.

Dr Cox explained: ‘I will undertake research investigating the work of organisations concerned with protecting girls and young women from a range of social and sexual risks, for example, rural-urban migration, familial abuse, low waged and flexible employment, particularly domestic service work, prostitution, HIV and trafficking.’

‘I see this as a third phase of my work on sociology and history of girlhood. The first phase dealt with British girlhood as my monograph, Gender, Justice and Welfare: Bad Girls in Britain 1900-1950, was the first detailed British historical study of girls’ delinquency. The second focused on European youth and girlhood so, in this third phase, I want to investigate girlhood in an ex-colonial setting.’

Dr Cox has made contact with organisations working with girls in Vietnam, including the Vietnam Women’s Union, Unicef and Oxfam America. She plans to observe some of their practical projects and interview people from these organisations, including co-ordinators, fund-raisers and outreach workers.
She will also be a Visiting Professor at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, whilst doing her research.

Also in the printed April edition of Wyvern:

• Biologists discover new microbes
• Believing in babies