Wild woodlands as a new component of urban forests -- Wild Urban Woodlands: Towards a Conceptual Framework -- New Perspectives for Urban Forests: Introducing Wild Woodlands -- Attitudes towards wild woodlands -- Attitudes towards Wilderness and Public Demands on Wilderness Areas -- Surrogate Nature or Wilderness? Social Perceptions and Notions of Nature in an Urban Context -- Nature for People: The Importance of Green Spaces to Communities in the East Midlands of England -- Living in the Urban Wildwoods: A Case Study of Birchwood, Warrington New Town, UK -- Use and Perception of Post-Industrial Urban Landscapes in the Ruhr -- People Working for Nature in the Urban Forest -- Ecological studies -- Nature Returns to Abandoned Industrial Land: Monitoring Succession in Urban-Industrial Woodlands in the German Ruhr -- Spontaneous Development of Peri-Urban Woodlands in Lignite Mining Areas of Eastern Germany -- Ecological Networks for Bird Species in the Wintering Season Based on Urban Woodlands -- Conceptual approaches and projects -- Nature Conservation, Forestry, Landscape Architecture and Historic Preservation: Perspectives for a Conceptual Alliance -- Approaches for Developing Urban Forests from the Cultural Context of Landscapes in Japan -- Strategies between Intervening and Leaving Room -- “New Wilderness” as an Element of the Peri-Urban Landscape -- Forests for Shrinking Cities? The Project “Industrial Forests of the Ruhr” -- Post-Industrial Nature in the Coal Mine of Göttelborn, Germany: The Integration of Ruderal Vegetation in the Conversion of a Brownfield -- Natur-Park Südgelände: Linking Conservation and Recreation in an Abandoned Railyard in Berlin.

Urban landscapes formerly shaped by heavy industry are evolving all over the world. The associated processes enhance the evolution of a new kind of wilderness. In regions such as the German Ruhrgebiet, vast post-industrial areas have already been re-colonised naturally by forests. These new types of urban woodlands are often overlooked by ecologists, foresters and planners. The book provides a first concise overview of ecological features and potential social functions of this new kind of urban wilderness. The general chapters provide introductions and conceptual approaches from the perspectives of ecology, environmental sociology, forestry, nature conservation and landscape architecture. They are illustrated by a broad array of case studies from England, Germany and Japan.