Posted on 05/26/2006 6:34:01 PM PDT by blam
Dutch told to return land they won from the sea
By David Rennie in Zaamslag
(Filed: 27/05/2006)
A photograph of a grinning boy, riding a toy tractor, has pride of place in the kitchen of Aarnout and Magda de Feijter, the owners of a 148-acre farm in the Dutch province of Zeeland.
The picture is of their first grandson, Louis, and the de Feijters have always dreamed that he will one day take over the expanse of wind-rippled flax fields that has been in their family since 1835.
The de Feijters on the dyke protecting their farm
But there are other plans. In the name of European Union environmental directives, their farm is earmarked for flooding - the first time in Holland's centuries-long battle against water that a substantial piece of land is to be deliberately returned to the sea.
Some 230 years after its flat pastures were wrested from the waters, the de Feijters' farm - their home for 33 years - is to be re-flooded to reverse the disappearance of Zeeland's mudflats and salt marshes.
For the family - raised in a province that owes its very existence to dyke systems dating from the Middle Ages - the plan is "un-Dutch". Breaching dykes is behaviour associated with invading armies, noted Mr de Feijter. Flooding a "polder", as land enclosed by a dyke is known, "has always been an act of war", he said.
The couple have planted chestnut trees and apple orchards and resent hearing that it is ecologically less important than salt marshes.
"Isn't this landscape beautiful?" said Mrs de Feijter. "There are birds, there are flowers. It's green."
The final decision must be ratified by parliament next year, but chances of a reprieve look slim. Dutch officials support the project, part of a scheme to re-flood 1,500 acres of land on the banks of the Western Schelde estuary. The re-flooding has been imposed by the EU Habitats directive, and the EU Birds directive.
The end will be quick. Engineers will build a new dyke behind the de Feijters' land and demolish their 150-year-old farmhouse. Then they will breach the high, grass-sided dyke at the bottom of their drive and the sea will rush in.
Mrs de Feijter was eight during the flood of February 1953, when almost 2,000 people died across Holland. Now, their farm is serene. There is no feel of the coast about their polder. You could imagine yourself a hundred miles inland - until you notice the top decks of a container ship slowly slide past.
Anton van Haperen, a wetlands expert with the Dutch national forestry service, is blunt. Since 1960, Zeeland has lost two thirds of its wetlands, he said. "Farmland has less value, ecologically." Yet he has no doubt that, without EU laws, politicians would not dare to flood farmers' fields.
The de Feijters will be given compensation, worth £2 million. They talk of buying a new farm and starting again, though they are in their 60s.
They do not rail against the EU, instead blaming "environmental extremists". Arguably, their foes are the shoppers of Holland and Belgium, with their appetite for cheap goods from the Far East.
In order to allow ever bigger container ships into Antwerp harbour, a deeper channel is to be dredged that will speed up erosion of the banks.
It is that loss of habitat that must be compensated for.
Gerard van Overloop, the government official who will oversee the flooding, said: "For hundreds of years, Zeeland was built by taking land from the sea. Now we are doing the opposite and it goes against our nature."
To hell with the EU-niks
My son just said (as I was reading this to my family, in amazement) - "If the Europeans all had guns, things would be REALLY different there." So true. And they will not even resist.
Followup, not a hijack, and feel free to pull -
but seeing how it has been in the nature of the Dutch to fight the sea for hundreds of years only to turn it over due to an external organizations surely has a parallel to us giving something we hold near and dear here in the US back to previous 'owners'
Huh?
Doesn't this decision discriminate against dykes?
Preferably, in a face to face setting.
You know, I like that comment. I lean toward that line of thinking. I just realize that our guns haven't made us safer here. To the contrary, our police agencies have turned themselves into paramilitary squads that would squash us like a common housefly if we got out of line.
If some angency wanted to turn your or my home into a bathhouse, there wouldn't be a blessed thing we could do about it, short of committing suicide by ghestapo.
You and I would have to back our belongings and move but quick.
Yep!
You have to read the story, It isnt the environmentalists its the shipping companies that are putting them off their land. Its big bucks not wetlands these folks are losing to.
Spurred by the aforementioned environmental extremists.
I love clean air, clean water, the birds that feed at my bird feeders. But darn it, a POX on environmental extremists who have no sense except a sense of power, power, power.
Large populations have less value, ecologically, as well. I suggest we lighten the load, starting with the dolt who uttered the above quote.
Fascism is alive and well.
Yep. Hard to feel too sorry for them, when they can't even muster some anger at those responsible for this travesty.
pure Darwinism, baby...
It's astonishing how europeans will roll over for EU directives, no matter how stupid and unfair they are. Yet I've ceased being amazed by the lack of resistance.
They've willingly given up hundreds of years of sovereignty to bureaucrats, largely from other countries. It's an amazing surrender and it happens on nearly a daily basis.
Europeans have become metrosexuals in every sense. They lack guts. Totally gone. They won't even fight for what's theirs'.
It's the vision the Democrats have for us.
Bowman was a bit more immediate than Galt.
And I can guarantee that there is absolutely NO ONE who will claim responsibility for this. They will all shrug their shoulders and point to the words on a piece of paper.
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