ON A cloudy night Anderijn Peeters, a horse-trainer turned environmental protester, parks at a wildlife preserve 30km east of Amsterdam. The back of her van is full of hay. Two more cars of activists pull up, after driving circuitously through neighbouring suburbs to confuse police. Their mission: to feed the wild animals. They sling a bale of hay over the fence. Suddenly, a pickup truck driven by off-duty park rangers speeds into the lot, fog lights blazing. Angry words are exchanged. Soon the police arrive. “This is something I’m prepared to go to jail for,” says Ms Peeters. But the officers leave it at a scolding.
Ms Peeters and thousands of others are up in arms over the government’s policies in the Oostvaardersplassen, a park of 56 square km reclaimed from the sea in the 1960s. In 1995 the forest service adopted a plan inspired by a maverick ecologist, Frans Vera, who wanted to recreate what he believed was the diverse pre-human ecosystem of the Netherlands. Rangers introduced red deer,...Continue reading
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