Precisely on the day that the central government announces that nitrogen emissions in the areas surrounding the Natura 2000 areas in our province must be reduced by 70 percent, children from Vogelenzang and Bennebroek learn the value of precisely that landscape as it is today. better appreciate. Initiators of the educational day hope that the agricultural lands here will become cultural heritage.
The Vogelenzang beach plain is the area between the dunes and the villages. And from time immemorial, it owes its agricultural character to Count Floris the Fifth, who had his hunting grounds here hundreds of years ago. The farms were built around it. And according to Marian van Genne, nowhere has this landscape remained as intact as in Vogelenzang.
‘Most intact beach plain in the Netherlands’
“There is also a beach plain somewhere near Bergen that is reasonably intact. But we are the most intact beach plain left, and one of the few,” she says. Together with teacher Elly Lodewijkx of the Willinkschool in Bennebroek, she organizes the educational learning day on the beach plain. The children are allowed to roam around, feed lambs, milk a fake cow and, for fun, paint the horses of the ‘s Gravenweg riding school.
And meanwhile they learn about Count Floris the Fifth and the history of their backyard. Because the villagers often know too little about that too, Miss Elly knows. “Everyone thinks that where you live you know a lot about it. But that is not always the case. And so it is also an area where farms belong. And that is under considerable pressure.”
Heritage
Marian would like to see the Vogelenzang beach plain given the same status as the Beemster, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In the meantime, the province has already acknowledged that the farmers in this area do not need to be expropriated immediately. And also today, the spokesperson for Deputy Esther Rommel says that he sees the plans of the cabinet as guiding. The province itself recently noted that the inner edge area is not interesting enough from an ecological point of view to be added to the Natura-2000 network.
And the children now see the added value of the farmers behind their villages. The fact that the horses and cows can also cause more nitrogen emissions is less important to them than that ‘cheap flight’, they say, while a full plane skims over the landscape every three minutes.
And Marian certainly does not want to downplay the nitrogen problem and its effects on the climate. “We will certainly tell the other side to the children, because it is a big problem. It is their future.”