grazingnetworks.nl: On ecological networks and grazing

Welcome to my new website about ecological networks and grazing animals. It is a website with a lot of interesting and technical information about nature management, Dutch and other European ecological networks, grazing and grazing animals and other subjects. I hope you will also enjoy my photos. Of course, the original slides are of better quality. You may ask for it when you want to make use of it

Thanks to both my sons, Marijn and Pepijn for their patient assistance by my steps in the IT - world. Marijn has made beautiful websites. He is also specialised in designing smiling faces. I am proud that I may use his flora and fauna smiling faces to beautify my website. He also made a nice serie of photos during one of our excursions to the Oostvaardersplassen.

You can also visit the site of my brother Ruud and his wife Kitty with beautiful pictures about their travels to countries far from home.

Ecologische Hoofdstructuur or National Ecological Network

Dutch nature policy is based on the National Nature policy Plan, which is agreed by parliament in 1990. It is a 30-year plan. One of the most important aspects of this policy document is the National Ecological Network.

The Dutch nature policy plan Nature for people, people for nature has been agreed by our parliament in January 2001. Dutch government decided that the Dutch National Ecological Network has to be finished in 2020: 730,000 ha on land and 6,300.000 ha sea and large waters. I will try to inform you about the main lines of this policy, the progress of its realisation and our experiences.

Recently we published a working paper "Ecological networks: Experiences in the Netherlands": A joint responsibility for connectivity. It shows our experiences: our lessons learnt.

Grazing and grazing animals

In the Netherlands, grazing as a nature management tool has a history of about 40 years: sheep, goats, cattle and horses were used similar as a mowing machine to maintain and develop the targeted vegetations. There is a lot of practice available to manage nature areas with animals in a proper way. But there is more.

Since about 1980 large herbivores are more and more seen as substitutes for extinct animals: extinct cattle (Aurochs) and extinct horses, like the Tarpan, which ecological influence in nature we have to miss. Based on experiences on some smaller plots, in the beginning of the eighties, we ask ourselves two main questions:

are special breed of herbivores able to fulfill the vacant ecological role of their ancestors?
are these animals - on the level of the population - able to learn to live under the natural circumstances of large nature areas? We call this the process of dedomestication (in English you can also use the word "feral", but I think dedomestication as the opposite of domestication is a clear, but new word).

Image 'userImages/Image/oudesite/150/oostvaardersplassen-mist-25-11-2004-0005.jpg' not found.

An other interesting question is how the different species of large herbivores can live together with each other: red deer, wild cattle, wild horses. In the Dutch Oostvaardersplassen we can see the results. They do not seem to have problems.

I will also pay attention to the ecological role of carrion and carrion eaters. It is a not so developed aspect in our nature management. And the role of wild boar as an European hyena.

Furthermore I will take you to a growing series of interesting nature areas in Europe. New is the page about Chornobyl in Ukraine, that I could visit in September 2004.

Image 'userImages/Image/oudesite/150/oostvaardersplassen-mist-25-11-2004-0005.jpg' not found.