Case against the cabinet for nature in the Voordelta

Seven nature organizations will go to court on Monday to force the cabinet to restore nature in the Voordelta, a European protected nature reserve off the coast of Zeeland and South Holland. The Netherlands is legally obliged to restore nature in this area, as compensation for the construction of the Second Maasvlakte. A large area of ​​permanently flooded sandbanks with associated flora and fauna has been lost, almost 2,500 hectares.

The Netherlands committed itself fourteen years ago to restoring nature in the Voordelta Natura 2000 area, but little has come of this in practice, according to the organisations, including Natuurmonumenten, World Wildlife Fund and Vogelbescherming Nederland.

The Voordelta was already designated in 2008 as a so-called seabed protection area, so that large fishing vessels are no longer allowed to enter the area. At the time, the agreement was that in an area ten times as large as the current Maasvlakte 2, at least 10 percent ecological gain would be achieved, so together good for 100 percent compensation. To this end, in 2008 a large part of the Voordelta was designated as a ‘bottom protection area’ and large fishing vessels were no longer allowed to sail there. But in practice, there is not much to notice about quality improvement in the Voordelta, according to the nature organizations, although there are no hard figures on this.

The nature organizations point to the ever-increasing number of shrimp fishermen, who sail with smaller vessels and have been kept outside the ban and have received permits. When fishing they disturb the bottom, which makes the life of many species impossible. The nature organizations now want Minister Christianne van der Wal (Nature and Nitrogen, VVD) to close off the area almost completely from human activity and to turn it into a real reserve. According to the organizations, this is the only way to make the compensation a success.

Read the backstory: ‘The minister thinks it’s fantastic that shrimps celebrate underwater’

Alternatives

Two months ago, Minister Van der Wal acknowledged in a letter to the organizations that “it is not sufficiently plausible” that banning large-scale fishing over the past fourteen years has been sufficient in the Voordelta, but is shying away from measures for the time being. She points out that there is still enough ‘biomass’ under water to provide food for some protected bird species, and she doubts whether establishing a reserve will have the desired effect. She would rather await further studies on alternative nature compensation.

Professor of nature conservation law Kees Bastmeijer of Tilburg University thinks that the nature organizations have a good chance of success in court. “It would be very strange if they were not proven right.” The compensation should actually have started before the construction of Maasvlakte 2, he argues, and the fact that the European Commission has agreed to this should have been all the more reason to carry out the compensation properly afterwards. “That didn’t happen. They have not done what was promised. I don’t understand how the minister let it get this far.”

Report page 6-7

A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of 11 April 2022