A group of farmers destroyed a protected Natura2000 area near Stroe in Gelderland on Monday evening. Staatsbosbeheer confirms this after coverage of Omroep Gelderland† It concerns a piece of vulnerable nature reserve of about 720 square meters, about one tenth of a football field. Farmers plowed and fertilized it without permission. Staatsbosbeheer is going to report vandalism.
The plot of land is part of a large Natura 2000 area of 10,000 hectares that largely consists of forest, says the ‘disappointed’ forest ranger Laurens Jansen. According to him, the ground is “not super vulnerable”, so the damage is manageable. However, Jansen is all about the idea. “We try to protect our nature from nitrogen and ammonia. The manure is also an unnecessary extra load.”
Radio Kootwijk
After the vandalism, the farmers drove from Stroe to the former Radio Kootwijk broadcasting station in the Veluwe, Staatsbosbeheer reports. The nature manager granted the peasant procession — without knowledge of her actions — permission to take photos near the monumental building. According to the Barneveld newspaper it concerned a group of about twenty tractors, led by a dairy farmer from Stroe.
According to various local media, the farmers were motivated by the idea that Staatsbosbeheer is not performing its tasks properly. A cattle farmer said to the Barneveld newspaper that farmers ‘get blamed for everything’, but that nitrogen in nature reserves mainly comes from airplanes and cars. That is not correct: agriculture is responsible for about 60 percent of the total nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, according to research agency TNO†
Declaration
Staatsbosbeheer is going to report vandalism. “This action has crossed a line,” said a spokesman. “You can’t destroy other people’s property.” She resolutely rejects the idea that Staatsbosheer does not take good care of nature. “Nature in the living environment suffers from nitrogen. It has been demonstrated often enough that agriculture is largely responsible for this.”
This is not the first time that farmers have passed on their dissatisfaction with nitrogen approaches to nature. Last week angry farmers in the South Holland polder village of Bergambacht sawed off about a hundred pollard willows under the knot. They won’t survive that. One of those responsible then said against it AD: „That way I can later tell my boys that I have done everything I can. It’s a shame for the trees, but much worse for all [boeren]businesses.”