Series of columns: How do you see the future of the Dutch polder landscape?

4 - My Polder

Wim Derksen (Director of Ruimtelijk Planbureau)

From my house in Ooltgensplaat I look along a straight dike towards the horizon. The dike runs from "lower right" to "upper left," counter to the pictorial laws that lead our eye to the upper right. This is reassuring. So much beauty deserves a small fault. It is the only fault; for the rest the dike displays the power of the Delta Works, which will brook no criticism. The farmer tills his land and the sheep graze on the dikes, their boundary marked by a white fence.

Pulling on my walking shoes, I can explore the polder further. Old dikes crisscross the landscape. The houses huddle up against the dikes, here a solitary dwelling, there a small group. What is lovelier than such a small dike house with two storeys on the ground floor? The wind blows around the solitary houses, a pair of houses can withstand the wind. What would a polder be without wind or the age-old skies? Water, clouds and land hard-won from water: this is the Netherlands' authentic beauty.

So the clichés flow from my laptop. The truth in caricature. Or merely the stuff of dreams, shared by many? We recognize ourselves in these images, but in the cold reality other images assail us. Why have we permitted the increased scale of agriculture to destroy so much of the original beauty of my polder? Why do we allow new greenhouses to rob my polder of its magnificence? Why do we lay new roads when the old ones sufficed? Why do we allow our once-beautiful villages to sprawl throughout the polder, added to by the tasteless houses that can be found anywhere? How fragile is this landscape, this cultural heritage that is so unique to the Netherlands?

The social dynamic cannot be denied; I applaud it myself. But it will take a great deal of wisdom to give this dynamic a place within the beautiful polder landscape. There are good examples. The banks of my Oudelandsedijk (Oldlands Dike) - a name that in itself makes me happy - have recently been given over to the Staatsbosbeheer, the national organization that manages nature reserves. Small parcels of agricultural land are being given back to nature. Farmers are taking care to plant trees to shield their new buildings from view. The new wind turbines on the dikes are used to announce the end of an island. Whoever observes all of this realizes that the government's latest policy on space has barely anything to do with the land.

Wim Derksen

(Photo: Frans Lossie)