New forest in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen made possible by De Hoop Terneuzen

29 May 2021

Last winter, Staatsbosbeheer (the Dutch forestry commission) planted 11.5 hectares of new forest in the Braakman-Zuid nature reserve and 4 hectares at the Kloosterweg near the town of Koewacht. The 16 hectares in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen will not be the last as Staatsbosbeheer has started selecting suitable locations in the province of Zeeland for the next planting season. The new forest was partly brought about by the collaboration with De Hoop Terneuzen. The parties made their collaboration public by planting a lime tree in Braakman-Zuid, together with representatives of the province of Zeeland and the municipality of Terneuzen.

This lime tree was originally planned to be the first tree to be planted but, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the ceremonial planting was delayed to Thursday, May 27 and actually became the closing event. De Hoop Terneuzen has made an investment to enable a total of 100 hectares of forest to be planted in Zeeland in the next few years. The new forest will capture, and thus make a structural contribution to reducing, CO2 (on average 10 metric tons of CO2 per hectare per year). According to the Dutch Klimaatakkoord climate agreement, CO2 will have to be reduced by at least 50% by 2030. De Hoop Terneuzen strives for sustainable development and care for the environment which is why it is investing in the planting of forest areas in the province of Zeeland.

Future-proof forests

Besides helping to mitigate climate change, planting new forest also serves other functions. It contributes to the range of natural species, the quality of the landscape, to buffering water, to people's health, and to making an area attractive for tourists and recreational users. The forest will offer future generations all kinds of options in terms of nature and recreation. A wide variety of different species of trees and shrubs is being planted to help make the forest attractive for people, plants and animals. Multi-species forests offer better resistance to climate change, long droughts, disease and storms. They also provide more varied habitats for all kinds of plants and animals that live in Dutch forests. One of the ways in which Staatsbosbeheer is creating such a multi-species forest is by planting well-known and indigenous species such as oak, beech, lime and sycamore, but also less well-known trees such as the field maple.

Joint effort to increase forest areas

Forests have also been given prominent attention in recent government policy. The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) presented its strategy on forests in November 2020. The central government and provincial governments have the ambition to increase the forest area in the Netherlands by 10%, which is some 37,000 hectares. Staatbosbeheer's plans fit seamlessly into this ambition and the province of Zeeland has translated this national ambition into its own vision which was drawn up in close consultation with all the Zeeland authorities, agricultural parties and area managers. This vision aspires to create an additional 425 hectares of forest as part of the existing NatuurNetwerk (Nature Network).