Biologists defy Cyprus'' ethnic cleave to protect environment Published: Share Tweet Recipient's Name Send There's something regal in the sprightly step and curious gaze of the long-horn sheep that roam the hills near Varisia, an abandoned village inside a UN buffer zone that cuts across ethnically divided Cyprus. Representative Image Nicosia: The endangered Mouflon sheep that are endemic to the eastern Mediterranean island nation is one of many rare plant and animal species that have flourished in this no-man's land, which stretches for 120 miles (180 kilometers) and divides the island's breakaway north from its internationally recognized south. Devoid of human habitation since a 1974 war that spawned the country's ethnic cleave, the buffer zone has become an unofficial wildlife reserve. Its residents include the threatened Egyptian fruit bat, the bee orchid, and the Eurasian Thick-knee, a dwindling species of shorebird also known as a stone-curlew. All have multiplied largely unperturbed. This unlikely refuge has been embraced by two environmental scientists, one Greek Cypriot and one Turkish Cypriot, as an open-air laboratory where complex politics and physical divisions can be put aside to focus on the overriding concern of protecting the parched country's fragile ecosystem.