History Main / LastFertileRegion

* ''Literature/ZForZachariah'': The valley where the main character lives is the only part of the country not devastated by a nuclear war, and the only other survivor to reach the valley does so after traveling for a year in a radiation suit. It is never explained why the valley survived, although the film adaptation suggests it is due to rocky hillsides and a good supply of groundwater.

** ''Honest Hearts'' has Zion National Park, which the nuclear war barely touched and has long since recovered, and is a paradise on earth compared to the rest of the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' universe. The player's moral choice is to evacuate the peaceful natives and let the Last Fertile Region be destroyed by its conquerors, or [[TrainingThePeacefulVillagers help the natives fight for it]] at the cost of their innocence.

* In ''Videogame/GrowlanserIII'' the Xironia Federation is the last country still able to grow crops in any sort of surplus. The rest of the world has been slowly stricken by famine as the sun's light begins to fade. The first third of the plot entails making an alliance to ensure the Federation's safety.

The good guys usually want to get there to find a better life or protect it from becoming barren like the rest of the world, though the two reasons can overlap. The bad guys usually want to get rid of it, either for resource gathering or for the [[ForTheEvulz sole purpose of being a douche.]] Like with the protagonists, both reasons can overlap. Except the EcocidalAntagonist to target these places.

The good guys usually want to get there to find a better life or protect it from becoming barren like the rest of the world, though the two reasons can overlap. The bad guys usually want to get rid of it, either for resource gathering or for the [[FortheEvulz sole purpose of being a douche.]] Like with the protagonists, both reasons can overlap.

* In ''Film/TheIsland'', the title Island is stated to be the last uncontaminated place in the world AfterTheEnd, besides the facility, where the survivors are being kept. [[spoiler:It's a lie. The world is fine, and the "survivors" are clones of the rich and the famous being used for body parts. Those chosen to go to "[[ReleasedToElsewhere the Island]]" are actually being sedated and taken to be cut up for whatever parts are needed for the original]].

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* Avalon in the ComicBook/XMen epic ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' is this, and the bad guys are trying to destroy it.

[[folder: Films -- Animated]]

[[folder: Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''Film/SilentRunning'' (1972). All plant life on Earth has been made extinct: the only plants left are in giant greenhouses attached to space freighters. Orders come through to jettison and destroy the domes so the ships can be returned to commercial service.
* The remake of ''[[Film/TotalRecall2012 Total Recall]]'' has a chunk of Europe and Australia be the two remaining habitable regions on Earth with the rest being toxic. However, it's difficult to call the regions "fertile" since all we see are cities and slums.

[[folder: Literature]]
* In ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', the countryside pasture that Winston and Julia make love in is only seen in one chapter. It's positively idyllic compared to the run-down cities they live in, with fields, trees, and hope for the future. [[spoiler:Sadly, Big Brother is watching here too]].
* The land of Lys, in Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/AgainstTheFallOfNight'', and ''Literature/TheCityAndTheStars''. A billion years in the future, the Earth's oceans have all dried up, and the entire world is covered in desert, except for one small region surrounded by mountains, and getting its water from underground.

* In ''Literature/TheEarTheEyeAndTheArm'' Resthaven, "the heart of Africa," is a gigantic nature compound and recreation of life as it was in ancient Africa, in the middle of Zimbabwe, which has been completely industrialized and citified. Resthaven is so utterly protected - few of its inhabitants know of the outside world at all, and even airplanes are expressly forbidden from flying overhead - that it never really runs into danger in the story. Instead, when the lost children enter Resthaven, it's a sign of panic because bureaucracy means ''they'll never leave''.

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* ''Radio/{{Earthsearch}}''. When the protagonists finally discover Earth at the end of season 2, the planet has been devastated by war and environmental change, so the entire planetary population consists of a single town of ten thousand inhabitants. They use the terraforming technology on their spaceship to help fix this.

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'': When Robotnik overthrew the monarchy [[HigherTechspecies with his technologically advanced]] [[RobotSoldier robotic army]], he immediately [[TakeOverTheWorld started conquering the rest of the planet]] with the goal of roboticizing [[FinalSolution absolutely everyone]]. The result of this has been [[HopelessWar years of world-spanning, one-sided conflict]], causing [[ApocalypseHow/Class2 extensive damage to all civilization]] and [[GaiasLament most of the environment]]. The series begins [[AfterTheEnd ten years after Robotnik won]]: The native populations have all either been captured or forced into hiding, leaving behind nothing except [[GhostCity empty, decaying cites]] where proud cultures used to stand. The Great Forest - home of the [[LaResistance Knothole Freedom Fighters]] - is one of the few areas Robotnik hasn't touched yet.

-->-- '''Ghost''', ''VideoGame/StarcraftII''

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has Oasis, the only place in the wasteland where trees flourish. The reason that nature flourishes here may be considered nightmare fuel to some, though.

* Played with brutally in ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight.'' The surface world is slowly starting to recover, but the main plot is over a different kind of Last Fertile Region: D6, the massive military complex discovered in the first game. Rather than verdant meadows, D6 is a treasure trove of unspoiled supplies left over from before the war that will make whichever station that controls it comparably rich. Unfortunately, most of these ''supplies'' consist of military-grade bioweapons, fueling the conflict for total control.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs 3}}'', there are two fertile regions in what is otherwise a planet-wide desert: a tiny garden and forest powered by the last of the Elw and the region around Yggdrassil [[spoiler: which is sucking up all the life energy of Filgaea, and thus has a little bit of "spillover" around it]].

* ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'': The mythical Dry Land...

* The creation of Demilitarized Zones between countries on the brink of conflict can make for some surprisingly lush nature preserves, set apart from human influence. Particularly, the one between the borders of North and South Korea is one of the most well-preserved temperate habitats in the world, with a number of endangered species within it. Pretty good for a place surrounded by fortified fences, land-mines and sniper towers owned by two countries with quite poor environmental track records.

* The Bialowieza Forest in the Poland-Belarus border is considered the best preserved temperate forest in Europe. Save the bear, the European mink and the extinct aurochs, the forest's current fauna is the same it was in Roman times. Alan Wiseman, author of ''TheWorldWithoutUs'', compared his visit to Bialowieza to stepping in one of the Grimm brothers tales.

* In ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'', the countryside pasture that Winston and Julia make love in could count.

* ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'' : The mythical Dry Land...