It’s an attractive narrative. But without sufficient context, the genesis of an involuntary park (a process also controversially dubbed passive rewilding) can “imply that nature simply fixes itself, or that in the absence of human intervention, a favorable recovery inevitably occurs at sites that may still be seriously degraded or hazardous,” cautions David Havlick, a professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs in the U.S. Thus, the violent (and still potentially hazardous) human past may be “greenwashed from view,” he says.

Experts say that involuntary parks can present an opportunity for both environmental and social recovery — if the whitewashing of history is avoided. Designating a controversial site as a wildlife refuge can, on the one hand, be used as “a chance to restore the site ecologically as well as an opportunity to recast its [incriminating] reputation,” Havlick notes in a 2011 paper [titled “Disarming Nature: Converting Military Lands to wildlife refuges”]