location: Netherlands

location: Netherlands

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We need a better understanding of how crops fare under solar panels, study shows
- In agrivoltaics, farmers grow crops beneath or between solar panels.
- Proponents say the technology can help achieve clean energy goals while maintaining food production, but experts caution that careful analysis and guidelines are needed if we’re not to compromise agricultural production.
- A new synthesis of previously published studies finds that overall crop yields decline as the amount of land covered by solar panels increases.
- This ground cover ratio is a convenient, easily measured and reproducible metric that can be used to predict crop yields and better evaluate agrivoltaic systems.

Ecologists help migratory birds adapt to climate change
- Warmer and earlier spring seasons cause problems for migratory birds, who return to breeding sites after winter to find that most of their food is already gone.
- Researchers drove European pied flycatchers north from the Netherlands to Sweden, where spring arrives two weeks later and food supplies peak at the right time for newly hatched chicks.
- Birds born in Sweden flew back to the same northern sites on their own to breed, showing that scientists might be able to help some species adapt to climate change.

The Dutch farmers’ protests of 2022: A Mongabay Series
- In this three-part series, Mongabay breaks down the Dutch “nitrogen crisis” and the great farmers’ protests of 2022.

Study finds old pear trees make for surprisingly rich reef habitats
- In a new study, researchers used old pear trees to create artificial reefs and settled them in the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands to see what kinds of marine biodiversity aggregated on or around them.
- They found that the tree reefs attracted a surprising amount of biodiversity over a short period of time, including sessile organisms like barnacles and mobile species like fish and crabs.
- The authors say tree reefs can be replicated in other parts of the world, mainly temperate regions.

In the clash over Dutch farming, Europe’s future arrives
- Despite months of protests by farmers and an electoral rebuke, the Dutch government has pressed ahead with an attempt to make its farming system more ecologically sustainable.
- But there are deep divisions in the Netherlands over how extensive any reforms should be, and clashes over the role that new technologies should play in them.
- This summer, talks over a potential consensus position between the Dutch government and the national farmers’ union collapsed in failure.
- The clash between the continent’s green movement and its agricultural industry is building steam, with the EU’s flagship conservation law barely squeaking through parliament in June.

In the Netherlands, pitchforks fly for an empire of cows
- In response to a court ruling, the Dutch government announced in 2022 that it would aim to halve emissions of nitrogen from livestock like cows, pigs, and chickens.
- The announcement enraged farmers in the country and sparked a massive protest movement that upended Dutch politics.
- For years, farmers in the Netherlands were encouraged to produce more milk, eggs, and cheese to meet Dutch export targets.
- The sudden u-turn and subsequent backlash gave rise to a new political party in the Netherlands, the Farmers-Citizens Movement, which swept provincial elections in March.

How manure blew up the Netherlands
- The Netherlands is one of the smallest countries in Europe, but also one of its biggest food producers and exporters, thanks to a wildly successful intensive agriculture sector.
- With the highest density of livestock in Europe, the Netherlands has been in the throes of a years-long crisis over nitrogen emissions from manure, which ecologists say are destroying the country’s ecosystems.
- When the Dutch government announced plans to buy out farms close to nature reserves and cut the country’s livestock herd by as much as one-third, farmers revolted, staging massive demonstrations and destabilizing politics in the Netherlands.
- The “nitrogen crisis” has become a flash point in Dutch society, raising difficult questions over how to reform unsustainable food systems and offering a preview of what’s to come for other countries as well.

Bringing the ocean’s vast ‘awesomeness’ to light: Q&A with Farah Obaidullah
- “The Ocean and Us,” edited by ocean advocate Farah Obaidullah, provides information from more than 35 female experts on various topics related to the ocean.
- These cover, among others, climate change, overfishing, pollution, ocean management schemes, the human relationship with the ocean, and inclusion and diversity in the ocean space.
- The book helps fulfill the aims of “ocean literacy,” a concept identified by the United Nations as a key driver for achieving the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development outcomes.
- “The Ocean and Us” was published by Springer Nature in February 2023.

Sea level rise looms, even for the best-prepared country on Earth
- The Netherlands, a low-lying European country with more than a quarter of its land below sea level, has been going to great lengths to protect itself from the impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and extreme weather events like heavy rain.
- But even for the Netherlands, a country with the wealth and experience to address these issues, the future remains uncertain, mainly because a range of possible scenarios could play out after 2050.
- According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a low-emissions scenario for the greenhouse gases that amplify global warming could elevate sea levels about half a meter (1.6 feet) above present levels by 2100; a higher-emissions scenario could lead to a 2-m (6.6-ft) rise by 2100 and a 5-m (16.4-ft) rise by 2150.
- Experts say that most other countries need to take the threat of sea level rise more seriously, and that engineering challenges, a lack of awareness and education, sociocultural concerns, and financial constraints are hampering their preparation.

For Dutch farming crisis, agroforestry offers solutions: Q&A with Lennart Fuchs & Marc Buiter
- The Dutch government aims to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030 by downsizing and closing farms, sparking a wave of farmer protests and a surprising win for a new agrarian political party.
- Agricultural and environmental experts are calling for the need to introduce food system solutions that both address farmer livelihoods while tackling the climate and environmental crises.
- Agroforestry, agroecology and silvopasture — climate change and conservation solutions that can be profitable — are among the solutions they say can contribute positively to the country’s nitrogen goals.
- Mongabay spoke with two Dutch agricultural experts — Lennart Fuchs from Wageningen University & Research, and Marc Buiter from the Dutch Food Forest Foundation — on how agroforestry could be part of a solution that works for both farmers and the environment.

The Netherlands to stop paying subsidies to ‘untruthful’ biomass firms
- On December 5, 2022, Mongabay featured a story by journalist Justin Catanoso in which the first ever biomass industry insider came forward as a whistleblower and discredited the green sustainability claims made by Enviva — the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy.
- On December 15, citing that article and recent scientific evidence that Enviva contributes to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast, The Netherlands decided it will stop paying subsidies to any biomass company found to be untruthful in its wood pellet production methods. The Netherlands currently offers sizable subsidies to Enviva.
- Precisely how The Netherlands decision will impact biomass subsidies in the long run is unclear. Nor is it known how this decision may impact the EU’s Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) certification process, which critics say is inherently weak and unreliable.
- Also in December, Australia became the first major nation to reverse its designation of forest biomass as a renewable energy source, raising questions about how parties to the UN Paris agreement can support opposing renewable energy policies, especially regarding biomass — a problem for COP28 negotiators to resolve in 2023.

Meet the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
- This year marks the 33rd anniversary of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors one grassroots activist from each of the six inhabited continents.
- The 2021 prize winners are Alex Lucitante and Alexandra Narvaez from Ecuador; Chima Williams from Nigeria; Julien Vincent from Australia; Marjan Minnesma from the Netherlands; Nalleli Cobo from the United States; and Niwat Roykaew from Thailand

Sloth, giant armadillo, and fishing cat conservationists win Future for Nature Award 2022
- Three people known for their work with sloths, fishing cats and giant armadillos were announced this week as winners of the 2022 Future for Nature Award.
- Tiasa Adhya of India, Gabriel Massocato from Brazil, and Rebecca Cliffe in Costa Rica each earn a cash prize they will use to advance their work with these endangered animals and ecosystems.
- One will use the funding to acquire a dog specially trained to detect the presence of sloths, a cryptic species whose populations are challenging to estimate.

COP26: Are climate declarations and emission reduction pledges legally binding?
- The 2015 Paris Agreement is not a treaty between nations, but rather a voluntary accord between 194 nations signed by their legal representatives. As such, it is not deemed legally binding — preventing nations and corporations from being sued to force them to take legal responsibility for harmful carbon emissions and policies.
- Or at least, that was the accepted legal precedent regarding the Paris accord, as well as declarations and agreements made since 2015 at annual COP summits. This includes this year’s Glasgow U.K. climate conference where major declarations to end global deforestation and sharply curb methane emissions were made.
- However, some 1,800 lawsuits seeking to hold nations and corporations responsible for their climate change pledges and emissions are moving through the worlds’ legal systems. At least one major case has borne fruit: In May 2021, a court in The Netherlands ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash carbon emissions far faster than pledged.
- It wasn’t international law that decided the case, but basic tort law: a legal obligation to not knowingly injure others. “Rights-based climate litigation is not some kind of scholarly fantasy; rather, it is turning out to be one of the most important tools civil society has to force governments to move more quickly,” says one legal expert.

Dutch to limit forest biomass subsidies, possibly signaling EU sea change
- The Dutch Parliament in February voted to disallow the issuing of new subsidies for 50 planned forest biomass-for-heat plants, a small, but potentially key victory for researchers and activists who say that the burning of forests to make energy is not only not carbon neutral, but is dirtier than burning coal and bad climate policy.
- With public opinion opposing forest biomass as a climate solution now growing in the EU, the decision by the Netherlands could be a bellwether. In June, the EU will review its Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), whether to continue allowing biomass subsidies and not counting biomass emissions at the smokestack.
- Currently, forest biomass burning to make energy is ruled as carbon neutral in the EU, even though a growing body of scientific evidence has shown that it takes many decades until forests regrow for carbon neutrality to be achieved.
- The forestry industry, which continues to see increasing demand for wood pellets, argues that biomass burning is environmentally sustainable and a viable carbon cutting solution compared to coal.

Are forests the new coal? Global alarm sounds as biomass burning surges
- As climate change rapidly escalates with worsening impacts, and with standing forests vital to achieving global warming solutions, the forest biomass industry is booming. While the industry does utilize wood scraps, it also frequently cuts standing forests to supply wood pellets to be burned in converted coal power plants.
- Though current science has shown that burning the world’s forests to make electricity is disastrous for biodiversity, generates more emissions than coal, and isn’t carbon neutral, a UN policy established in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol erroneously counts energy produced from forest biomass as carbon neutral.
- As a result, nations pay power companies huge subsidies to burn wood pellets, propelling industry growth. While the industry does utilize tree residue, forests are being cut in the US, Canada, Russia, Eastern Europe and Vietnam to supply pellets to the UK, EU and other nations who can claim the energy creates zero emissions.
- So far, the UN has turned a blind eye to closing the climate destabilizing carbon accounting loophole. The Netherlands, which now gets 61% of its renewable energy from biomass, is being urged to wean itself off biomass for energy and heat. If the Dutch do so, advocates hope it could portend closure of Europe’s carbon loophole.

‘Tainted timber’ from Myanmar widely used in yachts seized in the Netherlands
- Dutch police led raids in six locations in the Netherlands this month, where they seized teak originating from Myanmar.
- The EU does not allow timber that is illegally logged or obtained through overexploitation of forests to enter its markets.
- The seized teak allegedly entered Europe through the Czech Republic, where the enforcement of regulations is weak and was subsequently brought to the Netherlands.
- It is effectively impossible to import Myanmar teak into Europe because there is a high risk of the timber being illegally logged and difficulty in obtaining adequate and credible documentation to prove provenance.

Seeking justice against palm oil firms, victims call out banks behind them
- Individuals from Indonesia and Liberia embroiled in land disputes with oil palm plantations have visited the Netherlands to call on the Dutch banks facilitating these companies’ operations to take action.
- The companies in question are PT Astra Agro Lestari in Indonesia and Golden Veroleum Liberia, both of which are owned by conglomerates based in secrecy jurisdictions and which have financial links to Dutch banks ABN AMRO and Rabobank.
- The banks say their relationship with the companies is only indirect, and as such they say there is little they can do to influence them.
- Friends of the Earth, which arranged for the affected individuals to go to the Netherlands, is pushing for the European Union to adopt more stringent regulations that would disincentivize banks and other institutions from investing in environmentally and socially unsustainable businesses.

The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
- The entomologists interviewed for this Mongabay series agreed on three major causes for the ongoing and escalating collapse of global insect populations: habitat loss (especially due to agribusiness expansion), climate change and pesticide use. Some added a fourth cause: human overpopulation.
- Solutions to these problems exist, most agreed, but political commitment, major institutional funding and a large-scale vision are lacking. To combat habitat loss, researchers urge preservation of biodiversity hotspots such as primary rainforest, regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and nature-friendly agriculture.
- Combatting climate change, scientists agree, requires deep carbon emission cuts along with the establishment of secure, very large conserved areas and corridors encompassing a wide variety of temperate and tropical ecosystems, sometimes designed with preserving specific insect populations in mind.
- Pesticide use solutions include bans of some toxins and pesticide seed coatings, the education of farmers by scientists rather than by pesticide companies, and importantly, a rethinking of agribusiness practices. The Netherlands’ Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery includes some of these elements.

Dutch banks’ customers ‘unknowingly’ profit from palm oil companies
- A new report highlights the role of investment funds offered by Dutch banks in financing destructive oil palm expansion.
- Customers of the funds aren’t properly informed of the companies they’re invested in, the report says.
- A legislative proposal for a more sustainable investment policy is now being discussed by the European Union.

As climate change takes its toll, world leaders call for adaptation
- A new global initiative led by former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon aims to help the world adapt to the fallout from a changing climate.
- The Global Commission on Adaptation differs from current climate initiatives, which focus largely on mitigation, i.e. efforts to slow the emissions of greenhouse gases.
- The launch of the commission comes in the shadow of a new U.N. report warning of dire consequences from climate change affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world unless the global temperature rise is kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
- But even if this is achieved, Ban says, irreversible changes have been made that are already manifesting as unseasonal heat waves, more destructive storms, and other extreme weather events — which will require adaptation rather than mitigation by countries worldwide.

Better than bottled: How a Dutch company uses bison to maintain pure drinking water
- Water companies in the Netherlands have introduced bison and other large grazers to the dunelands from which they draw water to serve more than 4 million customers.
- The grazers keep tree and shrub growth in check and allow the dune ecosystem, home to 50 percent of the country’s biodiversity, to reach optimal ecological health.
- The reintroduction of the bison, which has been extinct in the Netherlands for thousands of years, also gives conservationists new insights into the management of the iconic species outside of forests.

Major Dutch timber company found guilty of dealing in illegal teak
- The Dutch Food and Safety Authority has ruled Dutch company Boogaerdt Hout in violation of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) for placing illegal Burmese teak on the EU market. The company has two months in which to clear its supply chain of illegal wood.
- The EUTR is part of the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan and aims to reduce illegal logging by banning the sale of illicitly sourced timber and timber products in the EU.
- While most teak on the market today comes from plantations, some is still illegally sourced from Myanmar.
- The extraction of Burmese teak has been denounced by conservationists, who say its trade is helping fuel rampant illegal logging in the country.

Public hearing concludes Vietnam fails to crack down on wildlife trafficking
- At a Nov. 14-15 public hearing, an “accountability panel” unanimously endorsed the Map of Facts presented by anti-trafficking NGO Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC).
- After an undercover investigation in Nhi Khe, Vietnam found a thriving wildlife market, WJC argued Vietnamese authorities were failing to live up to their obligations to curb the trade.
- Investigators presented evidence that 907 elephants, 579 rhinos, 225 tigers and other endangered species were being trafficked through Nhi Khe.

Progress being made in curbing illegal timber imports

Logging in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Five major timber importers are making progress in cutting contraband wood from their markets, argues a series of reports published by Chatham House. The analysis — which covers Britain, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States — is based on point of origin data for […]
‘Stop using the bloody things’: pesticides linked to bee collapse now blamed for bird declines

In recent years the evidence has piled up that neonicotinoids—a hugely popular group of pesticide—may be at least partly responsible for ongoing bee and pollinator collapse. But new research in the journal Nature find that these pesticides could also be taking a heavy toll on other species, in this case common birds. Using longterm data […]
Lab-grown meat: a taste of the future?

Many problems surround growing animals for meat. Most of the deforestation of the Amazon is done to create pasture for cattle; the meat industry is also responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions, amounting to five percent of the world’s total atmospheric carbon load and nearly 40 percent of its methane. Ethically, conventional meat is fraught […]
31 activists arrested attempting to stop Arctic oil from docking in Europe

Dutch police arrested 31 Greenpeace activists today, who were attempting to block the Russian oil tanker, Mikhail Ulyanov, from delivering the first shipment of offshore Arctic oil to the European market. Greenpeace opposes drilling in the Arctic due to the difficulty of cleaning up any oil spill in remote, ice-filled waters, and the exacerbation of […]
Aiming to avoid deforestation, Unilever to trace all palm oil it sources

In a move that represents a significant development for efforts to reduce the environmental impact of palm oil, consumer products giant Unilever today announced it will be able to trace all of the palm oil it sources by the end of 2014. The policy is notable because at present few major companies know where the […]
Europe importing more palm oil for biofuels, raising risks for rainforests

Deforestation for palm oil production in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Palm oil imports into Europe for use as car fuel increased by more than three-fold since 2006, raising concerns than renewable fuels targets may be contributing to deforestation, displacing marginalized communities, and driving greenhouse gas emissions in Southeast Asia, finds a new study […]
New illegal logging ban in EU could sever all ties with companies working in DRC

Yesterday, the EU joined the U.S. and Australia in banning all timber that was illegally harvested abroad. The new regulation could have a major impact on where the EU sources its timber, and no where more so than the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to a new report by Greenpeace, the DRC’s current moratorium […]
Malaysian sustainable timber certification fails Dutch standards

Logging truck carrying timber out of the Malaysian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. An independent panel in the Netherlands has found that the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) falls short of Dutch standards for sustainable forestry. The final decision comes after a series of judgements and appeals with the latest panel concluding that MTCS […]
Dutch buy first ‘responsible’ soy sourced from the Amazon

The Dutch food and feed industry has bought the first soy produced under the principles of the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), a body that aims to bring more socially and environmentally sustainable soy to market. The first 85,000 tons of RTRS certified soy originated from Grupo André Maggi, a Brazilian producer with operations […]
Meski Menurun, Pembalakan Liar Masih Masalah Besar

Laporan terbaru dari Chatham House mengungkapkan pembalakan liar di hutan tropis nasional di seluruh dunia secara umum menurun. Temuan ini membuktikan regulasi-regulasi baru dan usaha internasional dalam memerangi pembalakan liar berdampak positif. Menurut laporan tersebut, total kayu ilegal yang dihasilkan di seluruh dunia turun hingga 22% sejak tahun 2002. Chatham House juga menyebutkan negara penghasil […]
Illegal logging declining worldwide, but still ‘major problem’

Global production of illegal timber down by 22 percent from 2002. A new report by the Chatham House finds that illegal logging in tropical forest nation is primarily on the decline, providing evidence that new laws and international efforts on the issue are having a positive impact. According to the report, the total global production […]

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