Every year it happens again during the elm check, sick elms, but hopefully that will be for the last time. The Iepenwacht from Friesland comes to the aid of the municipalities in the Noordkop. The trees will be felled again this year, but the hope is that this will no longer be necessary in a few years. After last year’s skyrocketing numbers – 1,573 diseased elms – there are 1,367 trees that will not survive the check this year.
To tackle this recurring problem, the municipality of Hollands Kroon, together with Den Helder and Texel, has called in the Iepenwacht Fryslân Foundation (SIF). The organization was founded in 2005 and is a collective that has mastered Dutch elm disease in Friesland.
Return
And they should do the same in the Noordkop. At least, if the project actually starts. “We are still waiting until we can start”, says Gauke Dam, project leader of the Iepenwacht. The municipality reports that they want to solve the problem together with them. And that is not surprising, because the SIF has succeeded in reducing Dutch elm disease in Friesland from 10 percent of the elm stock to the target value of 1 percent in five years.
“It doesn’t work if everyone does their own thing”
According to Dam, this mainly requires cooperation: “Municipalities, water boards, the navy and other organizations with land with many elms on it must tackle the disease as a collective. It doesn’t work if everyone does their own thing.” Dam explains that if one municipality takes action, the problem is not solved, ‘because the disease spreads very quickly.’
The situation in Hollands Kroon requires a quick approach. “It is just as bad there as when we just started the project in Friesland,” says Dam. He therefore hopes for an equally good outcome.
Approach
SIF wants to support the municipalities for a period of five to six years. “In the next two to three years, mainly all diseased trees will have to be removed, and then replanting can start.” But the most important thing remains the collaboration, “when it is complete, we can then withdraw.”
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