was on Twitter a picture of a banner on a farmland. ‘Too much nature makes food too expensive’, was the text. The substantiation no longer fit on the piece of cloth, so that only the fun of the variation remained: ‘Too much manure has ruined nature’, ‘Too little sense, ruins the land’.
That was on the digital highway. If you are to believe the polls (you should never do that, by the way, about that another time), the Netherlands still gives a thumbs up on the physical highway when passing such a farmer’s cry.
In the parched news landscape it stuck AD Monday light a wet matchin the hope of roadside fire. “Experts: replace part of protected nature with other nature to help farmers,” a news item reported. The newspaper had found ‘several experts’ who argued in favor of scraping some of the Natura 2000 protected areas so that farmers could continue to produce their nitrogen.
There were exactly two of the ‘different’ experts. Not the same, not identical twins either, so indeed: different.
We had to ‘enter the discussion for the longer term: which nature is essential?’, argued ‘nitrogen professor’ Jan Willem Erisman in a story that was undoubtedly much more nuanced than the AD in a few lines. No one will doubt the Wadden Sea, he said, but ‘a small area near Germany, with species that can be found in much larger numbers across the border, do you have to keep that alive at all costs?’
That’s it. The ground under the Natura 2000 network is slowly shifting. Plow a little more and the whole Torteltuin can be bulldozed away for a tiled square.
How did it even start? Thirty years ago, when the European Union called on all Member States to designate nature reserves where special wild animals and plants needed protection. In total that is more than 750,000 square kilometers, about 18 percent of the entire EU. By way of comparison: about 40 percent is agricultural land.
Designated areas will in principle remain a nature reserve forever, the EU has determined. You can say (as it sounds again now): that is no longer of this time. But destroying a nature policy within a few decades is quite fast, especially when that nature is already at a loss. Moreover, the core of nature conservation is that you protect. Not that you will start gnawing at the pillars within thirty years (only the beaver is allowed to do that).
You can say: nature in the Netherlands does not exist, it is nothing more than a city park. One big petting zoo. The well-known stamp the size of Bloem’s newspaper. But it was easy for him to say: the poet was already simply happy in the Dapperstraat.
That is mainly a clincher; bad for living nature. Denying to get rid of the problem, according to populist patent. Soon someone will argue for the cutting down of all forests in Europe, because trees are no longer of this time in times of summer wildfires.
By the way, a rare and orphaned sidewalk plant still grows in Dapperstraat. Take a look at Waarneming.nl: one street away was a nature lover Sunday just happy with a barge leafminer – who doesn’t know him?
You hardly hear the nature organizations in the squabbling about nitrogen, farmers and nature. Afraid of offending members, or are they too boring for the media?
What nature really lacks: a bullfrog that bites off.