Iron Jungle - Nature’s Return to the Ruhr Valley - Go Wild

Europe’s biggest industrial area turns green! For more than 150 years the Ruhr Area was not only the heart of Germany s economy, but also Europe s most extensive industrial zone. Mines, steelworks and chemical industries dominated the region. River systems collapsed and the skies were ash-grey. But over the last decades the area has been transformed. Due to the crisis in coal and steel, many industries were shut down, and huge areas were abandoned. A whole variety of animals returned to fill the vacuum; invading factory ruins, and re-colonizing badlands, artificial hills and lakes. Now peregrines breed on old smokestacks, natterjack toads occupy temporary pools and blue-winged grasshoppers display on hot and stony wastelands. This film not only tells the story of a unique comeback, it also reveals some stunning animal behavior. Above all it celebrates the power and adaptive capacity of life itself.