Farmers are abandoning their land. Is that good for nature?
In southern Bulgaria, in the village of Tyurkmen, many brick houses sit empty. Their tile roofs are falling in. Gergana Daskalova, an ecologist who spent summers here with her grandparents as a young girl, points to a child's book lying amid the ruins. "Somebody poured their heart and soul in creating a home, and now it's just collapsing," she says.
A century ago, a thousand people lived in this village. Today, there are only about 200. People left for jobs in Bulgaria's cities, or abroad. Their heirs may still own land around the village where crops once grew, or sheep grazed, but much of that land now sits unused. Shrubs and small trees are taking over.
This is a common situation in Bulgaria, and in a surprising number of rural villages around the world. Even while large farming enterprises clear forests in Brazil or Bolivia in order to graze cattle or grow crops, some farmers elsewhere are walking away from their land, letting nature reclaim it.
Abandoned farmland "is a worldwide phenomenon," says Peter Verburg, a researcher on land use at the Free University Amsterdam. Small-scale farmers with rocky soil, steep hills, or scarce water "give up because they cannot compete," Verburg says.
