CONTROVERSES NUCLEAIRES !
ACTUALITE INTERNATIONALE
2005
TCHERNOBYL: "Une fantastique expérience" en faveur
de la biodiversité
?!
Despite
high radioactivity, plants and animals seem to be thriving.
Dix-neuf ans après la pire
catastrophe nucléaire civile au monde, la région de Tchernobyl,
frappée par les radiations à la suite de l'accident d'un
réacteur de la centrale nucléaire, est revenue à la
vie, et son écosystème affiche "une biodiversité
plus importante qu'avant le désastre", rapporte Nature
Le magazine publie les observations
de Viktor Dolyn, membre de l'Académie des sciences d'Ukraine, qui
travaille sur les effets de la radioactivité sur l'environnement.
Selon Dolyn, "une centaine d'espèces inscrites sur la liste rouge
de celles qui sont menacées sont à présent visibles
dans la zone évacuée qui couvre plus de 4.000 km2
en Ukraine, Biélorussie et Russie. Environ une quarantaine d'entre
elles, dont certaines espèces d'ours et de loups, n'avait jamais
été aperçue dans cette région avant l'accident."
Or, si ces animaux qui figurent au sommet de la chaîne alimentaire
sont présents, c'est que les animaux et les plantes dont ils se
nourrissent le sont aussi.
"Comment cela est-il arrivé,
étant donné que les niveaux de radiation sont trop élevés
pour que les humains puissent revenir sans danger ?" D'après
James Morris, de l'Université de Caroline du Sud, qui a dirigé
le groupe de scientifiques qui a mené l'étude, cela s'explique
par le fait que les individus, animaux ou végétaux qui ont
muté à cause des radiations meurent prématurément
jeunes. Ainsi ne subsistent que les individus adultes.
Par ailleurs, il semblerait
que l'un des principaux éléments radioactifs, le césium
137, reste dans les sols plutôt que de s'accumuler dans les plantes
et les animaux. "Cela pourrait signifier que la contamination de la
chaîne alimentaire humaine n'est pas aussi grave qu'on le croit."
Malgré tout, "cela
ne veut pas dire que les gens peuvent vivre dans la région". Au
contraire, un séjour prolongé aurait des "conséquences
désastreuses" pour les êtres humains. En revanche, "il est
difficile de dire ce qu'il va advenir des plantes et animaux de la région.
La biodiversité va-t-elle encore s'enrichir ? Telle est la question,
déclare James Morris. Dans un sens, il s'agit d'une fantastique
expérience."
...................
Chernobyl's ecosystems
seem to be bouncing back, 19 years after the region was blasted with radiation
from the ill-fated reactor. Researchers who have surveyed the land around
the old nuclear power plant in present-day Ukraine say that biodiversity
is actually higher than before the disaster.
Some 100 species on the IUCN
Red List of threatened species are now found in the evacuated zone, which
covers more than 4,000 square kilometres in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia,
says Viktor Dolin, who studies the environmental effects of radioactivity
at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences in Kiev. Around 40 of these,
including some species of bear and wolf, were not seen there before the
accident.
If animals at the top of the
food chain are present, then the plants and animals they eat must also
be thriving, says ecologist James Morris of the University of South Carolina
in Columbia, who chaired a panel of scientists presenting the results at
a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Montreal, Canada, this
week.
"By any measure of ecological
function these ecosystems seem to be operating normally," Morris told
news@nature.com. "The biodiversity is higher there than before the accident."
Mutant die-off
How has this happened, given
that radiation levels are still too high for humans to return safely? Morris
thinks that many of the organisms mutated by the fallout have died, leaving
behind those that have not suffered problems with growth and reproduction.
"It's evolution on steroids.
There are a lot of deleterious mutations in species but these seem to be
very quickly weeded out," Morris explains. Many young fish living in
the reactor's cooling ponds are deformed, but adults tend to be healthy,
implying that those harmed by radiation die young.
Another factor in the ecosystem's
apparent good health could be that the major radioactive elements in the
region, such as caesium-137, tend to stay in the soil rather than accumulating
in plants and animals, suggests Dolin. This means that contamination of
the human food chain by radioactivity from Chernobyl might not be as severe
as was feared.
All this has led some people
to propose that tourism to Chernobyl would help develop the area. In 2002,
a United Nations report suggested that ecotourism could help plug the gap
left by dwindling funds for regeneration.
A nice place to visit
It is now possible to visit
the area on holiday. But this doesn't mean that people can live there.
Some 40 different radioactive elements, including strontium-90 and decay
products of uranium and plutonium, were released into the exclusion zone,
and it will be many hundreds of millennia before humans could move safely
back, Dolin says.
Humans spending long periods
of time there would suffer a build-up of radiation that would shorten lives
and raise newborn mortality. "It would be a disaster for humans,"
Morris says.
Many birds are also showing
the harmful effects of the fallout. Morris's colleague Timothy Mousseau
found that barn swallows nesting around Chernobyl have lower survival rates,
fewer eggs and are in generally worse condition than those living southeast
of Kiev, away from the exclusion zone.
It is difficult to say what
will become of the region's plants and animals, admits Morris. One way
to find out is to sample the genetics of populations to see whether diversity
is likely to continue to increase. "What will happen here? That's the
question," he says. "In a way it's
a fantastic experiment."