About Nature Policy, Large Ecosystems
in a Small and Crowded Country
and the Role Large Herbivores can Play:
Challenges For Future!

von H. Kampf, Wageningen / Niederlande

1. About the Dutch nature policy

Nature Policy Plan 1990

First I would like to look at the way in which Dutch nature policy has been developed. In 1990 the first Dutch Nature Policy Plan was voted in by our Parliament. Its objective was to design an Ecological Network, composed of core areas and nature development areas, and to aim at higher nature values on farms, military sites, recreation areas, and so on. The Network would also include ecological corridors connecting the various areas.

Those of you who visited some of the nature areas in the Netherlands may have got an idea of the difficulties involved. We are a small country with a strong economy, and a growing population of 460 people per square kilometre. It is the most densely populated country in the world.

Nature areas and forests in our country have declined from 900,000 to about 450,000 hectares over the last century. That’s down to 2500 square metres for every Dutch person, but this also includes large municipal areas without any nature at all.

That is not much, especially not for a country that is making a transition from an agricultural and industrial economy into a service and knowledge-based economy. If the Netherlands wants to attract highly skilled labour, we have to compete with countries such as Switzerland with its beautiful mountains, or Denmark with its friendly open landscape, the flowers in the fields, forests, dunes and shorelines.

Fig. 1

The 1990 Nature Policy Plan aimed at variety and diversity in nature, with as an example lots of - breeding and migrating - birds. We wanted to increase the land for nature development from 450,000 hectares to at least 700,000 ha over a period of 30 years. This is to include 100,000 ha for extra nature reserves, 50,000 ha for nature development and more than 100,000 ha for nature management on farms. You can see from this diagram (Fig. 1) that the downward-sloping line is turning upwards.

1.1 Three-track approach

The national ecological network is based on existing nature areas and forests. Dutch nature will expand from this base. To decide where and how this expansion should take place, the following three-track approach was developed:

Track A:

• to provide more room for naturalness
• to expand the target types in the "natural" categories
• management is passive, i.e. only directed at improving ecological processes

Track B:

• to give more support to semi-natural nature;
• to do more to support biodiversity
• to involve nature managers and farmers

Track C:

• to improve the quality of nature in other areas
• to improve, enlarge and connect nature areas
• to seek co-operation with other policy areas such as defence, recreation, etc.

Fig. 2

With this three-track framework we can make decisions and resolve conflicts between two different lines of thinking:

• nature based on natural principles (wilderness nature) versus
• nature based on historic developments (such as former types of agriculture).

1.2 Evaluation 1998

The Dutch Nature Conservation Act requires that an evaluation of our national nature policy plan take place every eight years. The 1998 evaluation showed that we were successful in:

• setting up the ecological network,
• integrating forest management,
• developing woodland areas around the big cities,
• making progress in the fight against the negative influence of acidification, nitrification, and drying out.

But it also showed where the realisation of our nature policy gave problems:

• policy efforts achieved too little, too late;
• land prices were continuously rising;
• the environmental quality aimed at had not been achieved;
• linking zones connecting the nature areas had not come off the ground;
• the government wanted quantitative results rather than qualitative results;
• policies on nature, forestry, landscape and biodiversity were becoming more and more complex and were not sufficiently implemented.

Thus biodiversity is declining, nature is still far away for people in the cities and the number of species and ecosystems is still going down.

1.3 Nature for people, people for nature

In July 2000, a new memorandum - was submitted to Parliament. It is called ‘Nature for people, people for nature’, with the subtitle "Nature, Forest and Landscape in 21st century" (NBL21, Natuur, Bos, Landschap in de 21^e eeuw, see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

This policy memorandum, which is a cornerstone of the 5^th Memorandum on Spatial Planning and the 4^th National Environmental Policy Plan, works out in detail the following policy plans:

• the Nature Policy Plan from 1990,
• the Landscape Memorandum from 1994,
• the Forest Policy Plan (1992)
• the Strategic Action Plan for Biodiversity.

Integration has been chosen, from the viewpoint, that forest, landscape, biodiversity are all part of the ecological system. A policy, directed on segregation seems less profitable to us.

At the same time, the Minister of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries published the Voedsel en Groen memorandum (Food Production and Rural Areas), which considers the quality of food production and the quality of rural areas. The two memoranda form the policy framework for our rural areas for the next 10 years.

1.4 Ambitions

What are our ambitions (major themes) now?

• we want an environment that is pleasant to live and work in (liveability)
• we want effective protection for plants, animals and characteristic areas (diversity)
• we want the sustainable use of vital resources like water, space and biodiversity (wise use).

On the basis of this the government has the following objective for our nature policy:

This main objective must be seen in an international context and must emphatically also be seen as a cultural challenge. What it means is that nature and landscape must be for the people and of the people.

The government wants to:

• Nature
  continue to work on the realisation of the ecological network, which fits in the Natura 2000 policy
• Landscape
  adopt an active approach to landscape conservation and development
• Forests
  work on high-quality rural zones around cities
• Biodiversity
  ensure an effective international nature policy

These objectives translate into five perspectives for a more natural Netherlands in 2020. These are:

• International nature
  increasing efforts to integrate international nature policy.
• Large-scale nature
  strengthening the national ecological network
• Wet nature
  making best use of opportunities available here in the Netherlands
• Rural nature
  enhancing the quality of rural areas by involving farmers as stewards of biological diversity.
• Urban nature
  creating green zones in and around the cities.

Fig. 4

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