Over the past half century, the Nature and Environment Federation of Groningen has developed from a colorful collection of activists armed with banners and wearing goat’s wool socks into a professional organization that – now through the front door – joins companies and governments.
The fiftieth anniversary was celebrated on Sunday in a magnificent way on the grounds of Tuin in Stad in Groningen, a stone’s throw from the place where NMF won its latest victory. Together with eight other nature organizations, they opposed the construction of five thousand homes in the new Suikerzijde district until an agreement was reached with the municipality about replacement nature.
‘Groningen has become a lot cleaner in fifty years’
The department of the NMF in Groningen represents a wonderful mosaic of almost fifty nature and environmental organisations. ,,From butterfly club to Natuurmonumenten”, explains chairman Jan-Willem Lobeek. The national organization traces its roots to the Club of Rome, a foundation founded in 1972 with the report The limits to growth made headlines worldwide. Lobeek: ,,The report says bluntly that the earth’s supply of raw materials and fossil fuels is finite. The tragedy is that the problems that were mentioned at the time are still present today. Moreover, the CO2 issues have also been added. But I dare say that Groningen has become a lot cleaner in the past fifty years.”
‘We are no longer a voice crying in the desert’
“This is how the foaming ditches in East Groningen, where the potato processing industry is located, ended. It may sound a bit presumptuous, but we have certainly played a role in making this and other industries more sustainable, such as in Delfzijl. The role of NMF has also changed. At the time, we often carried out campaigns to draw attention to nature and environmental problems. Then you should really think about the goat wool socks category. But now we just walk in through the front door of companies and institutions. We are no longer a voice crying in the wilderness. More and more people are convinced that something really needs to change.
Fight against pigsties and nuclear waste
Klarissa Nienhuys (1948) is one of the very first volunteers. The former chairman of the Wadden Association knows how to trace rare bats on prospective construction sites with flawless precision and defends their habitat with verve. But she also does not turn her hand around for pigsties and the storage of nuclear waste. For example, she was closely involved in the action group Groningen Against Bio-Industry. “More and more people came to me to complain about the plans for mega stables in their area. For example, permits for several stables, 27,000 pigs in total, were applied for in Uithuizen.”
NMF and the De Beer is Los foundation were ultimately proved right by the Council of State in 2015 and 2019. “The municipality simply did not have its zoning plan in order. But she was by no means the only one, we had to educate a lot of municipalities on this point.”
She saw the NMF change greatly over the years. “It used to employ 2.5 people, but now there are thirteen. It has really become a professional organization.”
Fred Bosman (1948) was chairman of the department in Groningen from 1990 to 2000. “They were all very passionate people. We had a very small staff and then mainly a lot of volunteers. Before 1990 you saw the emergence of nature and environmental organizations everywhere in the Netherlands. More and more people – young and old – were attracted to this. It really was a kaleidoscopic whole, people of all denominations were part of the team. Our field of activity was very broad. We oppose the excavation of old sea dikes and the haphazard planting of hardwood that would affect the characteristic vastness of the landscape. We also made a point of the importance of sustainable construction back then. That was certainly not easy, because contractors had their own views on this and not all municipalities had experts in the field of sustainability.”
“What are we going to do with a magnetic levitation?”
“A very important point for us were the plans for the magnetic levitation track that had to run from Groningen through the polder to Amsterdam. We then really delved into the pros and cons. We concluded that as an environmental organization we were not looking forward to a train that dragged large numbers of commuters back and forth over a distance of 200 kilometers every day. You see that more often, a test balloon is released and it is then blown up enormously. Now you have all those plans for a hydrogen economy. But experts are not really to be found here.”
The NMF also has enough work for the next fifty years. Lobeek: “Four major themes will play a role in the near future: climate change and adaptation, the declining biodiversity and a more sustainable use of our raw materials. Just like fifty years ago.”