Netherlands: Berg en Dal (part of National Landscape Gelderse Poort)

The Berg en Dal municipality makes up the southern part of National Landscape Gelderse Poort, a pilot area from a network of 20 Dutch national landscapes. The National Landscape conserves the typical Dutch river landscape around the Rhine and Waal rivers. Berg en Dal encompasses important nature restoration areas, hill ridges and agricultural landscapes. The region pursues a gradual transition from traditional and intensive agriculture to a more sustainable eco-agricultural management (www.nationalelandschappen.nl). In order to achieve this, suitable management measures, governance models and finance mechanisms are being implemented.

In particular, a very innovative, stakeholder-participatory financing model for regional accounting has been developed called “Streekrekening” (www.streekfonds.nl). Within the proposed project we plan to investigate how the use of the ecosystem service concept can help to further strengthen the governance, combining agricultural production with other ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation.