History Main / NewEden

** The United States military has long-standing conservation programs on its military bases. There's a species of butterfly, Saint Francis' Satyr, that now only exists at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and the Army is actively involved in its preservation.

* Subverted in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'', in which [[spoiler:they arrive at Earth only to find that it was thoroughly nuked two thousand years ago, and is ''still'' an uninhabitable wasteland]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E3TheSontaranExperiment The Sontaran Experiment]]", only now Earth (or at least the greater London area) looks like the Devonshire moors.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E20TheWayToEden The Way to Eden]]", also known as "The One with the Space Hippies", a group of free-thinking individuals, one who was a former Starfleet Academy student, seek out the supposedly mythical planet Eden. After hijacking the ''Enterprise'', they find Eden in the Romulan Neutral Zone. Unfortunately for them, the plant life is full of acid, making it uninhabitable by humans.
* The ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "The Gamekeeper" begins with this revelation, and the rest of the episode is dedicated (among other things) to SG-1's attempts to convince the locals [[LotusEaterMachine stuck in a virtual reality]] that the planet did indeed repair itself, even though said locals believe otherwise. The Keeper is hellbent on convincing them otherwise.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Voices in the Earth", the ghosts of the dead Earth tell Professor Donald Knowles that they have the power to restore Earth's biosphere. However, they are reluctant to do so as the process requires a great deal of energy and could destroy what is left of their consciousness. Knowles accuses them of being cowards, just like the people who made Earth uninhabitable in the first place. This appears to shame the ghosts into doing the right thing as the biosphere is restored and the first signs of life are detected in the oceans. As the ghosts were able to accelerate evolution, Earth will soon be teeming with life again.

Long before the start of the story, [[GaiasLament ecological disaster]] drove humanity UnderseaCity, or underground, or into space, [[EarthThatWas away from a ravaged Earth]]. After living for quite a while in a CityInABottle, it's a safe bet that someone will eventually find the way out and discover that the Earth has cleaned itself up nicely and now looks like the pristine GhibliHills, or why not, [[CaliforniaDoubling the Yosemite National Park]].

Long before the start of the story, [[GaiasLament ecological disaster]] drove humanity undersea, or underground, or into space, [[EarthThatWas away from a ravaged Earth]]. After living for quite a while in a CityInABottle, it's a safe bet that someone will eventually find the way out and discover that the Earth has cleaned itself up nicely and now looks like the pristine GhibliHills, or why not, [[CaliforniaDoubling the Yosemite National Park]].

Naturally, this is the perfect setting for an AdamAndEvePlot. May evoke the original GardenOfEden story as well. Compare ReclaimedByNature.

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' villain Raʼs al Ghul is an international criminal mastermind whose ultimate goal is a world in perfect environmental balance. He believes that the best way to achieve this balance is to eliminate most of humanity.

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' Raʼs al Ghul is an international criminal mastermind whose ultimate goal is a world in perfect environmental balance. He believes that the best way to achieve this balance is to eliminate most of humanity.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

%%* Used at the end of TheFilmOfTheBook ''Film/LogansRun''.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "The Sontaran Experiment", only now Earth (or at least the greater London area) looks like the Devonshire moors.

* The ultimate destination for the main characters of ''Literature/TheCityOfEmber'': their city is dying, so they're trying to find a way for everyone to leave it and go somewhere where they can all survive.

* In the ''Literature/NovelsOfTheChange'', the total collapse of all modern technology means that things like bison and prairies make a hefty comeback, and wolves come back to the U.S. in force (also, lions and tigers. Blame soft-hearted zookeepers).

->''"There, in vision, out of the wreck of cities and civilizations,''
->''Slowly out of the ruins of the past,''
->''Out of the litter and muck of a decaying world,''
->''Lo! even so''
->''I saw a new life arise."''

* ''Anime/{{Megazone 23}}'' Part 3 has one city in the whole world, [[LampshadeHanging unsurprisingly named]] Eden. Though after meeting [[spoiler: the computer AIs]] Eve and Adam in the first two parts, it's hardly surprising.
* The core MacGuffin of ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', though it looks less like a national park and more like a surreal, magical realm.
** The manga also has the caveat that [[spoiler:since modern humans have adapted to their polluted AfterTheEnd environment, they literally wouldn't be able to survive in a purified world. Old humanity (the one that destroyed the environment to begin with) engineered the Sea of Corruption to purify the world, so that, once the process was complete, it would emerge from its cocoons and take over once more. On learning this, Nausicaa destroys their Crypt, and hopes that her current mankind, instead of being replaced by its AbusivePrecursors, will adapt on its own just like it did before.]]
* Implied in ''Anime/PaleCocoon''. [[spoiler:Humans escaped to the Moon to avoid environmental destruction, but somehow lost their written history, and started to believe they were living underneath the destroyed Earth. In the end the protagonist as the first person to go to the upper layers of the colony in centuries sees a blue, pristine Earth up in the sky, implying that the planet was healed long ago, but no-one thought to look.]]

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'': Played with

* Twisted in ''Manga/TokyoMewMew''. The ancestors of the BigBad and his followers were originally from Earth, and fled into space after it seemed like they were about to die off. They ended up on a very harsh planet, and upon finally returning to Earth, it looks perfect in comparison. ''Then'' they notice that humans are taking this paradise for granted, littering and polluting. This starts their initial desire to KillAllHumans.

* When Durham Red [[HumanPopsicle emerged from stasis]] to start her own series in ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'', Earth was considered lost by the humans and mutants of the future. How did they lose it? Turns out that it was teleported to the far reaches of the galaxy to act as a prison for [[PhysicalGod the most powerful mutant ever]]. In the meantime, the world recovered and became a lush paradise. Predictably, it did not stay this way.
* The ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'' issue of ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' ends with this. The FinalBattle with a [[CosmicEntity Phoenix Force]]-empowered ComicBook/{{Magneto}} ends up [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt burning the planet and killing every person on it]], except for ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}, who survives through a combination of his HealingFactor and [[DeusExMachina intervention]] from [[ComicBook/JeanGrey White Phoenix!Jean Grey]]. She then fast-forwards the two of them through time, as the Earth heals itself from the damage, eventually re-covering it in lush greenery and returning it to the animals. The issue then ends with the implication that Logan and Jean will now serve as the new Adam and Eve.
* This is pretty much Ra's al-Ghul's ultimate goal in Franchise/TheDCU, though needless to say, he's yet to succeed.

* ''FanFic/TheConversionBureau'' stories often suggest this by contrasting Equestria with our world. Chatoyence's works openly state that all human beings should die if it would make the world a prettier place.