News item | 15-12-2023 | 14:16
The draft National Rural Area Program (NPLG) will be available for inspection from January 16 to February 26, 2024. The documents can now be downloaded via the link below. During these six weeks, everyone can respond to the approach and principles of the draft program. With this approach, the government and provinces, together with residents and entrepreneurs, work on a rural area with sustainable agriculture and other economic activities, and with a great diversity of plants and animals, clean water and healthy nature. Christianne van der Wal, Minister for Nature and Nitrogen, announced this today in a letter to the House of Representatives.
Minister Van der Wal: “We will make choices in the coming years to make our rural area strong and healthy. The impact of these choices can be major on the people who live, work and recreate there. That is why I think it is important to include everyone involved and to hear what people think of the National Rural Area Program. By making the program available for inspection now, I hope that we can obtain valuable input that will enable the next cabinet to make a decision on the program with which we balance a strong economy and resilient agriculture with healthy nature and a clean living environment.”
Basis for area-oriented approach
It is important for nature and society that we continue to work on a healthy and strong rural area. The draft NPLG helps to provide clarity to provinces, entrepreneurs, social organizations and residents about what we want to do together to achieve our water, nature and climate goals. It also provides insight into which instruments provinces can use to achieve provincial goals. The provinces then make concrete plans per area with their Provincial Rural Area Programs (PPLG), together with all those involved. They further elaborate the goals and choices and describe how they will do so. Making the NPLG draft available for inspection prevents loss of time with this area-oriented approach.
However, more will be needed to achieve the NPLG goals. Clear prospects for the agricultural sector and financial support to shape the transition are important conditions. Because the cabinet is in a caretaker position, this can only be further elaborated to a limited extent at this time. However, the leading projects of the provinces, with measures that can be implemented in the short term, are currently being assessed by Wageningen Economic Research. The government wants to send a proposal to Parliament early next year to add resources to the LNV budget for measures that make a significant contribution to the nature, water and climate goals.
Comments for further decision-making
The presentation of the draft NPLG is an important moment: the reactions and voices that the cabinet collects from society are used for the further development of the program and form important input for decision-making by the next cabinet. Thanks to its availability for public inspection, the draft NPLG can also contribute to the broader spatial puzzle that will be created in the coming year on the basis of various government programs (including the NOVEX and the new spatial policy memorandum).
New in the draft NPLG
The draft NPLG is a follow-up to the initial memorandum (June 2022) and the development document (November 2022) that were previously published. Compared to the development document, the guiding goals, including those for nature areas, have been further developed as a tool for provinces to further shape the area plans. Appropriate financing is an important condition for its actual implementation. In addition, the design program contains spatial choices about how to work towards those goals, such as the careful handling of agricultural land. In addition to the draft NPLG, the associated plan environmental impact report (planMER) will also be made available for inspection. A plan EIA is an environmental impact report that is drawn up for a plan or program to be adopted in order to provide insight into the environmental effects.