Deep in the Cyprus countryside a team of scientists trekked to the tiny ghost village of Variseia which was abandoned more than 30 years ago. Nature, not man, is king there now.

The village is in the heart of the UN buffer zone separating the island's Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, and is a thriving mini-ecosystem untouched since the 1974 Turkish invasion.

The war which split the popular Mediterranean tourist destination in two has created a spectacular natural environment where once-threatened flora and fauna have flourished without the interference of mankind.

Now, for the first time since 1974, scientists have launched a comprehensive survey of the wildlife which has blossomed in this region.

"The ecosystems of the buffer zone are a strange mix of those which existed beforehand and which have had a chance to flourish, and species which have been introduced," said Nicolas Jarraud, a French expert who is part of the UN Development Programme (UNDP-ACT), leading the study.

Divided

The so-called Green Line stretches around 180 kilometres across the island, slicing through the hills of the Paphos forest and even the streets of old Nicosia, the world's last divided capital city.

The buffer zone totals around three percent of the island's territory, according to UNFICYP, the UN peacekeeping force.

Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since Turkey occupied its northern third in response to an Athens-engineered Greek Cypriot coup seeking to unite the island with Greece.

The buffer zone separates the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government from the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which is recognised only by Turkey.

Troops from both sides monitor movements in the buffer zone and stare out towards each other from observation posts.

The buffer zone has escaped the frenetic building spree which has swept through the region, destroying the habitats of many species on an island renowned for its rich biodiversity.

Project leaders are unwilling to be drawn into prematurely announcing which species may be hidden in this wilderness until the survey has been completed, but the scientists have been encouraged by early indications.

In addition to the huge variety of snakes to be found in the Green Line undergrowth, rare orchids and tulips have also been discovered along with endangered skylarks and stone-curlews, whose numbers had plummeted in recent years.

A symbol of peace

The black-bellied sandgrouse, thought to be extinct on the island, may also be living in the demarcation zone, according to Greek Cypriot ornithologist Iris Charalambidou, who said she hoped to find proof of this in the spring.

In the heart of this wilderness zone lies Variseia — a collection of houses scattered across several hills looking out to Morphou Bay on one side and the Troodos mountain range to the other.

Silence now haunts the ghost village with its collapsed roofs, rotten wooden beams and broken shutters.

"This village is a symbol of division. Our project is a symbol of peace because the language of science is universal," said Jarraud.

Buildings that were once home to Greek Cypriot families are now lived in by owls, pigeons and rats.

The hasty retreat of the villagers more than 33 years ago froze the village in time, creating a snapshot of daily life in the sleepy hamlet. A case of empty cola bottles lies on the floor of one building, close to a faded school maths book.

Elsewhere, the rusted hulk of a car balances on its axles, its seat cushions, windscreen and anything else not made out of metal long since vanished.

This unspoilt region is also home to between 300 and 500 wild sheep known as moufflons, according to the Game Fund Service of the interior ministry.

The phenomenon of abandoned territories becoming sanctuaries for wildlife is not new and was well documented in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea.

Not all good

An absence of human activity in the region has its drawbacks. Feral dogs roam the divide and are the dominant predators in the Green Line, topping the food chain.

The dogs carry a host of diseases such as the Echinococcos tapeworm and they have been known to attack the moufflons.

Eucalyptus trees, introduced by the British around the end of the 19th century to dry out the marshlands where malaria-carrying mosquitoes bred, rob neighbouring vegetation of water and secrete chemicals into the soil which cause other plant life to struggle to grow.

"Without introducing a number of koalas, there is no natural enemy for them, apart from mankind," said Jarraud.

"Letting nature develop completely alone is not necessarily a good thing," he added. "If we want to survive on this planet, we need to work with nature, not against it or separately from it."

This philosophy of not attempting to control nature but working in synchronisation with it has dominated the thinking of ecologists in recent years.

To this end, a programme of vaccinations for the feral dogs breeding in the zone was launched, together with measures against the rat population and the spraying of insecticide to prevent the return of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

In this region left wild for more than three decades nature is king, but even nature can use a helping hand from time to time.

AFP