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."
The re-flooding has been imposed by the EU Habitats directive, and the EU Birds directive.
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Perhaps appropriate, being as the EU is one of the more bird-brained inventions of last century.
Nothing much angers me more than reports like this.
Little do-gooders have way too much time on their hands, and international agencies should be told to go " " off!
The bureaucrats who engineer this crap are safe. If they weren't safe, this crap would go away.
The EU is charging onward toward oblivion and taking a lot of innocent people with it.
Who is John Galt?
Then they are stupid leftist sheep.
Where is Henry Bowman?
Insanity.
Outrageous.
This goes against instinct for those Dutch people. Holland doesn't have much land to begin with. Perhaps Brussells Grand Square or wherever the EU rat's nest is currently located, should be flooded. It would clean it out.
Aah, the virtues of having joined the EU and their PolitiK and Group Think.
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.
I throw an approving EWG in your direction.
L
They're trying to catch up with all the damage caused by Rachel Carlson and the ban on DDT.
They need to come up with an endangered animal species of mammal.
You're undeniably right.
Simply, absolutly, absurd! I live in a Dutch Colony, and this is enimical to telling an American that we are going to demolish your home and give the land back to the Indians because 200 years ago it was part of a tribal homeland.
It goes counter to everything which makes up Dutch thinking. Only a EU Commission could think up somthing like this.
"Where is Henry Bowman?"
He lives in my basement. I'm having a hard time finding space for all that 20mm ammo though.
Arguably, somebody is an idiot here.
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