Best of 2025 … so far: the great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?

2025年最佳瞬间……迄今为止:伟大的弃置:当人类消失后,自然世界将何去何从?

The Audio Long Read

2025-08-06

36 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it. This week, from February: across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to Bulgaria. By Tess McClure. Read by Sara Lynam The Oath documentary: www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/jul/30/the-oath-to-be-a-palestinian-doctor-in-israels-healthcare-system. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod
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单集文稿 ...

  • This is The Guardian. Hi, I'm Jess Gormley, executive producer of Guardian Documentaries.

  • We wanted to let you know about our latest film release called The Oath.

  • It follows a Palestinian doctor working in Israel's healthcare system where a quarter of all physicians are Palestinian citizens of Israel.

  • As conflict rages, Dr Lina Qasem Hassan grapples with her commitment to the medical oath.

  • This documentary is available to watch on The Guardian and YouTube.

  • A film link can be found in this podcast's show notes.

  • Hi, my name's David Wolfe, and I'm the editor of The Guardian Long Read.

  • Over the summer,

  • we'll be picking a few of our favourite pieces of the year so far and giving you a bit of background information about them.

  • So this week I've picked The Great Abandonment,

  • What Happens to the Natural World When People Disappear by Tess McClure.

  • Like a lot of people, I'm always fascinated by images of abandoned buildings,

  • abandoned cities, things like that.

  • And whenever there's a gallery of those kind of pictures on the Guardian site,

  • it's something I always click straight away.

  • So when Tess mentioned this idea to me, I was immediately intrigued.

  • To me, there are two really remarkable bits of information in this piece.

  • The first is just how much of the world's land is abandoned

  • as people have migrated from rural to urban settings over the past few decades.

  • In the piece, Tess writes, since the 1950s,