Do you know the parable of the black grouse? These wild chickens once walked around on the Sallandse Heuvelrug. That is why a project was launched to release the grouse again. 180 were caught in Sweden, but hardly one survived in Salland. They did not thrive, despite the felled forest, the increased moorland and the eight tons it cost to catch and fly. But the grouse project continued. At one point even the hawk had to be fought, which sometimes outwitted a black grouse. Although the hawk was also protected, it was not the target. That was the grouse.
It is an almost biblical story, from the book by bird of prey expert Rob Bijlsma, Churches of gold, pastors of wood (Atlas Contact, 2021). And the story has a moral for the nitrogen crisis. Nature is not a fact, but a representation, an appreciation. For the participants in the grouse project, grouse were nature. The second lesson is that of ends and means. For the return of the grouse, that poor hawk also had to give way. There is a certain fanaticism involved. Even if the goal is unachievable, the drug continues to be administered.
In the excitement about nitrogen, the question of what nature is disappeared behind the horizon. There is no more manufacturable nature than the Dutch, in which sawing, felling, teasing, releasing, capturing and transferring is done continuously. But what is nature actually? On Sunday Member of Parliament Tjeerd de Groot (D66) said firmly Buitenhof that things are going very badly with Dutch nature. Nature is receding. Nobody contradicted him, not even Sjaak van der Tak of the farmers. For those who want to see the gentian blue bloom, things are indeed going badly. But for those who love storks or wolves, the Dutch nature is a miracle. Especially when you consider what a century ago nature was in this country for the poet: a piece of forest the size of a newspaper.
But as things go in politics, an objective benchmark had to be found for experiencing nature. After all, measuring is knowing. This is how nitrogen values came into the world, mainly under the influence of the judge, who had to make decisions in the event of disagreements about nature quality. Nitrogen precipitation became nature’s thermometer, to which we owe the fruitless debate about whether or not models are correct to determine deposition, or whether measurement is better than modeling. This also includes the tragic images in the news of cow toilets, which have to prevent a shot glass of cow pee from leaving the stable with ingenious lifting constructions.
I borrow some things from a so-called round table in the House of Representatives a year ago. There, someone from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) argued that we should move away from the obsession with nitrogen and return to the debate on nature quality, and that there is scope for this within the European guidelines. In a report from the same PBL, Towards a way out of the nitrogen crisis (2021), I read that maintaining current nitrogen targets would lead to the end of agriculture as we know it. Open livestock farming and arable farming in Gelderland, Brabant and Overijssel, even organic, circular, nature-inclusive, you name it: ‘A final picture is emerging.’
That is a dramatic finding. But to quote Twan Huys, who tackled the subject of nitrogen Buitenhof broached, ‘the time of porridge and wetness is over’. Such is the mood in the country. We have to follow the laws and science, Tjeerd de Groot said, with a hint of complacency. Not long ago there was a typical Dutch nitrogen compromise. It was called PAS, Nitrogen Approach Programme. Expansion or new construction could be checked against less nitrogen emissions in the long term. That was fired by the judge and a traumatic construction freeze followed. Since then, the PAS scheme has only been mocked, with Henk Bleker (CDA) being the angry pier.
There are quite a few former politicians walking around with nitrogen on their hands, such as Diederik – ‘the beauty of the compromise’ – Samsom and Sharon Dijksma (both PvdA). None of them want to be reminded of their nitrogen adventures and that too fits the times. In these excited days, people sometimes forget that politics is just about keeping things wet, in other words, preventing people from hitting each other in the head. The nitrogen compromise has been exchanged by court decisions for the great right of activists and conservationists. It is an example of the legalization that is the ax to the root of politics. Not a bit equal and can live with that, but beating the opponent has become the bet. For the losing farmers, there is also the felt condescension of Randstad officials and politicians with their paper reality.
As far as that paper reality is concerned: the necessary reduction in nitrogen percentages has now been completed, and nothing else. ‘We are going to talk about how’, said VVD party leader Sophie Hermans. On the famous map from the ministerial nitrogen letter, I saw the modest nature reserve in the Peel and the expanse around it that would have to be cleared by pigs. The PBL wrote about ‘a landscape change that could be unparalleled historically’. No one knows what to do when all those stables, barns and fields are immediately empty. I heard the first criminal cannabis growers have already reported to reuse the sheds. Another possibility is that we will have an endless wasteland of solar panels, something like the new progressive college in Groningen envisions. We can call it nature.