Oostvaardersplassen

The Oostvaardersplassen (Dutch pronunciation: [oːstˈfaːrdərsˌplɑsə(n)]) is a nature reserve in the Netherlands, managed by the Staatsbosbeheer (state forestry service). Covering about 56 square kilometres (22 sq mi) in the province of Flevoland, it is an experiment[2][3][4] in rewilding.[5] It is in a polder created in 1968; by 1989, its ecological interest had resulted in its being declared a Ramsar wetland.[6] It became part of Nieuw Land National Park when that was established in 2018.

Oostvaardersplassen
Konik ponies in the Oostvaardersplassen
Geographical map of the Oostvaardersplassen
LocationFlevoland, the Netherlands
Nearest cityLelystad
Coordinates52°27′N 5°22′E
Area56 km2 (22 sq mi)
Designated2 June 1989
Reference no.427[1]

Geography

The Oostvaardersplassen is located in the municipality of Lelystad, between the towns of Lelystad and Almere, in the province of Flevoland in the Netherlands. The area of 56 square kilometres (22 sq mi) is situated on the shore of the Markermeer in the center of the Flevopolder. The Oostvaardersplassen can be divided into a wet area in the northwest and a dry area in the southeast.

Wet and dry areas

In the wet area along the Markermeer, there are large reedbeds on clay, where moulting geese often feed. This area is also home to great cormorant, common spoonbill, great egret, white-tailed eagle and Eurasian bittern, among many other animals. Oostvaardersplassen is a Special Protection Area for birdlife.[7]

Before the establishment of the reserve, the dry area was a nursery for willow trees, and in the first year hundreds of seedlings could be found on each square metre. This led to concern that a dense woodland would develop, significantly reducing the value of the habitat for water birds. To avoid this, the park's managers brought in a number of large herbivores to keep the area more open, including Konik ponies, red deer and Heck cattle. These large grazing animals are kept out in the open all year round without supplemental feeding for the winter and early spring, and are allowed to behave as wild animals (without, for example, for now, castrating males). The ecosystem developing under their influence is thought to resemble those that would have existed on European river banks and deltas before human disturbance. However, there is some controversy about how natural the ecosystem is, as it lacks top predators.[5]

Large herbivores
Heck cattle

Before they were driven to extinction, large herbivores in this part of Europe included the tarpan (wild horse), wisent (European bison), red deer and aurochs (wild cattle). The tarpan and aurochs are extinct, but Konik ponies and Heck cattle are able to act as functional equivalents, occupying a similar ecological niche. The only native large herbivores now missing from Oostvaardersplassen are the elk (Alces alces), the wild boar and the wisent. There is a chance that the wild boar will find its way naturally from the Veluwe.

Head count2010[8]2011[9]
Red deer   2,200–2,800    3,300    
Konik ponies   1,090    1,150    
Heck cattle   320    350    
Roe deer   30–40    n/a    
Carcass of deer that had been shot because it was too weak to survive the winter

Management

The reserve is the subject of decades of management reports[10][11][12] and protests[13][14] against the large reported number of grazers dying by starvation or shot to death,[15][16] while the animals are kept behind a fence and cannot migrate.[17] During a particularly harsh winter in 2005, many animals in the Oostvaardersplassen died of starvation, leading to public outcry against alleged animal cruelty and leading to the culling strategy.[18] In the winter of 2017–2018, almost 3.300 deer, horses and cattle starved to death[19] dividing[20] the Dutch public[21] and leading to demonstrations and individuals feeding hay to the animals despite police arrests.[22][14]

The Province asked the Van Geel Commission[23][24] to write a policy which was presented in April[25] and approved on 11 July 2018. This Van Geel report advised to manage the terrain instead of rewilding. The consequence is a reduction of the numbers of remaining animals either by replacing or shooting[26] which led to another outburst of protests and court cases.[27][28]

Mass mortalities were likely also caused by failure to connect the reserve to the Veluwe nearby due to conflicts with farmers and a lack of political support, abandonment of OostvaardersWold due to political transition,[29] and failure to introduce large predators.[30]

Future development

In many ways the Oostvaardersplassen is an isolated area; it is in a polder and there are currently no corridors connecting it to other nature reserves. The "Ecological Main Structure" plan proposes connections between nature reserves in the Netherlands, calling for a corridor to be created toward nearby Horsterwold. The resulting network, called Oostvaardersland, would be part of Natura 2000, the European-wide network of habitats to which Oostvaardersplassen belongs.[31] The creation of Oostvaardersland will allow seasonal small scale migration and take some strain off the big grazers in winter. In the summer, Oostvaardersplassen will offer rich grazing and the sea winds will keep biting insects at bay, in the winter, the Horsterwold will offer protection from cold winds and supply browse. Oostvaardersland will comprise a total area of 150 square kilometres (58 sq mi). Furthermore, there is an option for a connection to the Veluwe forest. Eventually this could allow wild animals to move to and from Germany.[32]

Oostvaardersland was expected to be finished by 2014. However, the project ran into financial and political troubles. In 2012 the creation of Oostvaarderswold, the 7 × 1 mi connecting corridor between Oostvaardersplassen and the Horsterwold, was stopped, and four members of the regional parliament resigned.[33] The government then planned to sell back the property to the previous owners for less money than it originally paid for the property; according to European nature laws it would then have to turn other lands into wilderness areas to compensate for the loss of the Oostvaarderswold nature area.[34]

As above-mentioned, the plan to connect to the veluwe in Gelderland also failed.

  • Konik ponies
    Konik ponies
  • A Heck bull amongst a herd of Konik ponies
    A Heck bull amongst a herd of Konik ponies
  • Young Heck cow with calves
    Young Heck cow with calves
  • A red deer
    A red deer

See also

References
  1. "Oostvaardersplassen". Ramsar Sites Information Service. Archived from the original on 24 May 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  2. "Experiments with the wilds at the Oostvaardersplassen (University of Oxford)" (PDF). www.geog.ox.ac.uk. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-12-05. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  3. "Where Dutch Nature Planning Went Wrong | Dutch Language Blog". blogs.transparent.com. 22 May 2018. Archived from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  4. "Experiment Oostvaardersplassen mislukt" [Oostvaardersplassen experiment has failed]. www.volkskrant.nl (paywall) (in Dutch). 6 September 2005. Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  5. Oostvaardersplassen is discussed, for example, in George Monbiot's book Feral: searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding (2013). While being in favour of rewilding, Monbiot has doubts about this site's lack of tree cover and of predators.
  6. "NL066 Oostvaardersplassen". BirdLife. Archived from the original on April 11, 2016. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
  7. "EUNIS -Site factsheet for Oostvaardersplassen". Eunis.eea.europa.eu. Archived from the original on 2013-05-24. Retrieved 2013-02-07.
  8. Nederlands staatsbosbeheer (12 April 2011). "Managementplan Oostvaardersplassengebied 2011 - 2015" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 July 2015.
  9. Nederlands staatsbosbeheer (Autumn 2011). "Oostvaardersland Seizoensbericht – najaar 2011" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-10-23. Retrieved 2013-08-21.
  10. "2005 ICMO(1)" (PDF). www.rli.nl. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-03-29. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  11. "2010: ICMO2". Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  12. "2015 - BAC report". Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  13. "Demonstratie voor 'creperende' dieren Oostvaardersplassen". nos.nl (in Dutch). 4 March 2018. Archived from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  14. "Vijf aanhoudingen bij demonstratie Oostvaardersplassen". www.omroepflevoland.nl (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  15. "Facts and figures Oostvaardersplassen". Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  16. "It is not dead please shoot again!". Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  17. "2012 - Recall of the wild". The New Yorker.
  18. Reardon, Sara (28 February 2014), "Rewilding: Bring in the big beasts to fix ecosystems", New Scientist (2958), archived from the original on 28 February 2014
  19. Barkham, Patrick (2018-04-27). "Dutch rewilding experiment sparks backlash as thousands of animals starve". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2018-12-16. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  20. Brown, Emma (2018-05-02). "Oostvaardersplassen: where thousands of wild animals died". DutchReview. Archived from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  21. "Circle of life or experiment gone wrong? Horse slaughter sparks debate". NBC News. Archived from the original on 2018-12-12. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  22. "Onrust om bijvoeractie in Oostvaardersplassen, vijf arrestaties". nos.nl (in Dutch). April 2018. Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  23. "Van Geel gaat in commissie Oostvaardersplassen leiden". www.omroepflevoland.nl (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  24. "Rapport commissie Van Geel Oostvaardersplassen". Staatsbosbeheer (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2020-02-16. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  25. "Report Van Geel on Oostvaardersplassen" (PDF). www.flevoland.nl. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-12-15. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  26. correspondent, Jon Henley European affairs (2018-09-20). "About 1,000 deer to be culled at controversial Dutch rewilding park". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2018-12-16. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  27. "Talpa Network". consent.talpanetwork.com. Archived from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  28. "Tweede zitting over afschot van edelherten Oostvaardersplassen". www.rechtspraak.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 2018-12-13.
  29. "Rewilding's next generation will mean no more reserves full of starving animals". Archived from the original on 2021-03-20. Retrieved 2021-03-01.
  30. Steph Yin, 2019, The Netherlands' grand rewilding experiment, gone haywire Archived 2020-07-11 at the Wayback Machine
  31. (in Dutch) Natura 2000 'Oostvaardersplassen' Archived 2012-03-31 at the Wayback Machine
  32. L. Verbeek; A.E. Bliek-de Jong (October 2010). "Oostvaardersland. Strengthening biodiversity and the economy in the Netherlands" (PDF). Presentation at the Convention on Biological Diversity, Nagoya, Japan. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 October 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  33. "Status OostvaardersWold". Provincie Flevoland. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
  34. "Van Gerven: 'Verkoop natuurgrond Oostvaarderswold is pure vernietiging'". SP website. 11 April 2012. Archived from the original on 10 October 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2013.
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