The BBB deputy who wanted to be stricter than the cabinet was faced with farmers. ‘The more nature is added, the less space we get’

Step over the gate of the Willinks Weust nature reserve in Winterswijk and at your feet is an excavation where lime is chopped from the earth. In the background, the grumbling of the Sibelco lime and filling factory sounds.

This is such a place in the Netherlands where you can see at a glance how nature and business should harvest. The factory that has been there since 1932 and provides employment, but also nitrogen emissions, is right next to a protected nature reserve. Willinks Weust is a Natura 2000 area, protected through European legislation. There are species -rich forests, the Kamsalamander lives there, but it is especially special because of the lime -rich soil, with juniper and grasslands full of rare plants.

Further on and around it is the land of farmers. Their companies are under pressure, because European and national rules make the lowering of nitrogen emissions inevitable. So far there is hardly any cabinet policy to achieve the legal nitrogen goals for 2030. Provinces see how the Netherlands is locked as a result, and – often under the responsibility of the Boerburger Movement (BBB), which contributes to almost all provinces – increasingly themselves themselves.

We have thought along and now we are seen as the problem

Of all provinces, Gelderland has the largest land area in Natura 2000 sites, the Veluwe in front. BBB-deputy Ans Mol attracted the attention in March: she came up with her own plans, even earlier than the cabinet and, moreover, stricter than the ideas that the minister would later come up with.

For example, the outgoing cabinet is considering setting ‘Bufferzones’ of 250 meters around nitrogen -sensitive nature. Gelderland is racing on ‘nitrogen strips’ of five hundred meters around four vulnerable nature reserves: De Veluwe (by far the largest), the Brummen estates near Zutphen, and two areas around Winterswijk.

The emissions in those areas should eventually fall by 60 to 70 percent. For 350 (farmers) companies, the options seem to be sustainable, moving, shrinking or stopping. Since then, Deputy Ans Mol has been facing a complicated task: listening to people who resist and continue measures. Is that possible at the same time?

For example, in Gelderland, where about half of all of all nitrogen -sensitive nature is in the Netherlands, the struggle that drivers – especially when they are of the BBB – have to enter into nitrogen. A step forward, then another one back, the tone firm but not too loud, talking, postponing, controlling and respecting emotions and at the same time doing what the law asks.

Scenery landscape

Location manager Gerard ten Dolle (63) and dairy farmer Stefan in Selle (41) are located in the Sibelco meeting room Sibelco, who has a farm at the end. They both grew up in Winterswijk, they have known each other for a long time: Ten Dolle was once a youth leader of the football team that played in Selle.

They enthusiastically talk about the special scenic landscape with the small plots that are separated by hedges, wooded banks and walls. And also about the protected Natura 2000 areas around Winterswijk-around two of them, Willinks Weust and Kijnelle, the province wants to set up the buffer zones, which means that their companies will probably come under pressure.

Zoom in

That sticks them. “We have always worked in harmony with nature and landscape. But now we are being treated as polluters,” says Stefan te Selle. In their eyes, in Winterswijk there is always cooperation with the province, the municipality and nature managers.

Ten Dolle acknowledges that the factory emissions (1.3 percent of the precipitation on Willinks Weust), but also 75 people work there. And he thinks about solutions. With farmers, municipalities, nature managers and bird protectors – this year an eagle owl built a nest in the quarry – has made a bad agreements about the reclassification of areas, so that nature and companies would have enough space.

The “worst,” he thinks, is that Sibelco sold six hectares of land to the province of Gelderland more than ten years ago. In exchange, the company bought an area a little further to develop. The land that was sold to the province became part of the protected nature reserve Willinks Weust. With that protected status, the requirements for nitrogen emissions also became much stricter.

“We have thought along and now we are seen as the problem,” says Ten Dolle. Te Selle: “We see our company slowly falling into tribulation. The more nature is added, the less space we get.”

A packed theater

The dissatisfaction among farmers and other entrepreneurs in the yeast area for much longer. More than ten years ago it was agreed in the province that 4,273 hectares (slightly less than 6,000 football fields) land in Gelderland would be ‘transformed’ into nature. That can partly solve the nitrogen problem, but it gives farmers and entrepreneurs the feeling that they are literally pushed away. That feeling only became stronger when the province presented the new plans in March.

The sentiment became visible when Deputy Ans Mol came to explain her policy at the end of March in the Winterswijkse Schouwburg De Storm. Farmers had put tractors on the square, there were banners. Mol tried to explain in the room that she could not help but take solid measures, and that the so -called strips of five hundred meters are not even enough.

They shouted that it is “a disaster” that they “helped the BBB in the saddle” and now have “this misery.” Destroy that nature, someone cried. Then Stefan te Selle came on stage. He read a flaming explanation. The most important questions of people, he says, were not answered at all. “What can I do? What do I still like? Or when? And how?” Te Selle asked people to stand when they reject the plans. Almost everyone did that. His last words were almost lost in a thunderous applause: “Think before you start.”

With measures that have so much impact on companies, it is not wise to say what the rules are in one go. Consultation is needed

After that it was quiet for a while, and Ten Dolle and Te Selle had discussions with the provincial government on behalf of farmers and entrepreneurs from the area. Until the province of Gelderland at the beginning of July again with plans. The province suggested ‘thinking’ for the approximately eight hundred companies in the strips in Gelderland: energy saving and cleaner heating installations for companies and swimming pools, for example. For farmers, there could be emission standards and better stables, and less manure should be used. Nothing is fixed yet, the province emphasized. “Thinking along? You can!”

But the biggest surprise for farmers and entrepreneurs in Winterwijk: there may not be nitrogen strips there. First we look at what farmers and companies have done since 2018 to reduce their emissions and are considering new measures. If they yield enough, then the province is willing to refrain from strips around Winterswijk – how much ‘enough’ is the province to determine this fall.

Together with the water board and residents, entrepreneurs, companies and civil society organizations in the area, less nitrogen emissions will be considered and creating a ‘prosperous countryside’. Work will be done on a plan for the exchange of plots for the next two years, so that entrepreneurs can continue and nature recovery is promoted.

It is what has been happening for years, but then given a new look.

‘Perspective’ for the region

Ans Mol, who chooses to ask from NRC To answer in writing, says the new proposals offer ‘perspective’ for the entire region. Also small emissions at people’s homes, such as a barbecue or wood fire, would first be restricted, but the province believes that on closer inspection “to be deeply intervened in the personal lives of people while the yield is relatively limited”.

At the same time a lot is not certain. It is still not clear which measures people are confronted with. Whether the ‘thinking’ are legally feasible is not known; Not whether they are practical, not how much nitrogen reduction they would yield. Mol: “With measures that have so much impact on companies, it is not wise to say what the rules are in one go, consultation is really necessary, so such a process goes step by step.”

It leads to a very slow process, in which months pass in which virtually no claim is made – real decisions are still hardly taken. And all that with a cabinet that is outgoing and makes important decisions.

Mol, in writing: “Although the subject is not stated nationally, it is also fair to determine that we cannot expect enough clarity from the government about the nitrogen policy that will be implemented in the longer term. The situation is so urgent that waiting is not possible.” She is still confident that it is possible, Gelderland ‘from the lock’.

Zoom in

Dairy farmer Stefan in Selle has to “see it all.” Yet he is happy that the province wants to work together again. “I feel that they now say: we are making a pass in place, we went too fast and we will consult again.”

But whether it goes fast enough? He talks about the veterinary practice in the neighborhood that is going to stop because there is not enough future in the business. Too many farmers stop. “We have seen for some time that club life is deteriorating, that schools are less able to fill their classes. The entire nitrogen discussion is ultimately about liveability, and that is where my fear lies: that we will no longer be able to live well with all of them.”

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