Policy options

An up-to-date realistic map of national conservation targets is important

If the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality is to apply criteria for nature conservation targets more accurately and if it wants a better view of the ecological results, a more up-to-date and realistic map of areas with specific national conservation targets is needed. Such a map will provide a clear foundation for the agreements of the Ministry with provincial authorities and the private land owners and managers of conservation areas. It should be based on a map of the ecological potential of specific areas. There will also need to be a national, uniform, and closer link between the map of national conservation targets and the scheme targets for the Stewardship Programme and Forestry Commission. Despite the delegation of the direction to be steered on the nature management programmes to the provincial authorities, the Ministry still has the responsibility for implementing the national ecological network and for international obligations with regard to biodiversity.

Provincial authorities need to avoid fragmentation

Provincial authorities can use their area plans to avoid the fragmentation of nature reserves, by not devoting all of their efforts to persuading private land owners without commitment to the necessary ecological conditions. Moreover, provincial authorities can stipulate a condition when selling land to private land owners there that they will not make any objection to developments in the area that will positively influence biodiversity, for example, raising the water table. The provincial authorities should always look critically at the ecological potential of a site before they offer a subsidy, whether to private land owners or to the large organisations which manage nature reserves. The latter, with the provincial authorities, could stimulate the private land owners to work together with nature conservation and management organisations.

The effect of management: nature areas on Ameland with and without grazing (photo R. Wegman)  

The resources for agricultural nature conservation could be used more effectively

If the financial resources devoted to agricultural nature conservation are intended to achieve the national conservation targets, they would be much more effective if they were concentrated in areas that are most suitable from an ecological point of view, backed up by more ambitious ecological scheme targets, with a correspondingly higher subsidy. The ecological effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes targeted at plant biodiversity, in particular, could be raised by shifting these resources to the nature reserves under the Subsidy for Nature conservation (SN) scheme, where better environmental conditions can be achieved. Even there, it will be necessary to select favourable sites and create large spatial coherent areas.

Establish unambiguous criteria for the targets and make the policies coherent

The study shows that the national conservation targets can, in principle, be achieved, but that this will require improvements in the environmental conditions and spatial coherence. Thus it is necessary to achieve a better match between conservation policy, spatial planning policy and environmental policy. This will lead not only to more realistic conservation targets, but also to more effective environmental and spatial planning policies.

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