Sheep barn right on Witterveld
Confidence in the future is so great that Rogaar and Visser and their company built a large sheep farm on Witterweg ten years ago after intensive consultation with the municipality of Assen, the province of Drenthe and the Ministry of Defence. A stable with the butt right on the Witterveld, and in which about two thousand Drenthe heath sheep fit. Because in addition to the enormous Witterveld, they also do other, smaller grazing projects.
“An ideal place, because you can then go straight into the field with the sheep. And if there is something wrong with a sheep, or something is wrong with the fence, you will be there in no time. It is of course a vast area, with kilometers of fencing. We have a quad here, so you can quickly get there,” says Rogaar.
According to the province, no special nature permit is required for the stable. Because the company of Visser and Rogaar actually contributes to the nature management of the Witterveld, or so the reasoning goes. But if they had known then what disaster would strike them years later, they would never have built the sheepfold there. “No, of course not. Not a hair on my head. We have invested 1.1 million euros. And for what? We are located with our stable right next to the field, where another shepherd will soon unload sheep. We will all see that It can hardly get more acidic,” says Visser.
She also fears for the future of the stable, which they will soon be putting up for sale. “Because we are right on a Natura2000 area with our sheep farm, but without a special permit. The connection with nature management on the Witterveld has now suddenly disappeared. Are we now also a kind of PAS reporter? First everything neatly legal, and then now with all the hassle it’s just illegal. What that one man from the Rijksvastgoedbedrijf has done to us has quite consequences for us,” said an embittered Caroline Visser.
According to the shepherd couple, the evil genius in the whole story is a new groundskeeper, who will cross their path in mid-2019. The Central Government Real Estate Agency has then officially become ‘the boss’ of the Witterveld. Visser and Rogaar then suddenly have to deal with a groundskeeper, with whom things quickly go wrong. He immediately announces all kinds of changes. “Drawly fewer animals have to be in the field for grazing, we had to get out of the meadows that act as a buffer around the Witterveld. They suddenly start mowing and draining there.” And so the annoyances quickly pile up.
“That man behaves like a lord of the castle,” says Visser. “We just had to do what he thought should be done. There was hardly any normal communication, he didn’t need consultation, he sent orders via Whatsapp. Not even with text, sometimes just with a photo, for example of a branch on a grid. With the intention that we had to take it off quickly.”
Visser and Rogaar increasingly got the feeling that they were a bunch of ‘dumb sheep farmers’, without any knowledge. “Ron knows the Witterveld like the back of his hand, he knows every spot, knows everything about management, and then you are treated like this?” They find the way of communication ‘intimidating’ and they also accuse the man of ‘bullying behaviour’.
“It was clear that he wanted to get rid of us. He just had to find a way. He finally found it.”
Watch the report below with the shepherds of Landscape Management Het Witterveld, text continues below the video