Tag Archive for: landscape contribution

Redactie Walk of Wisdom

Giving back: €240 for Natuurmonumenten

Hunting Lodge Mookerheide Natuurmonumenten

From every donation for our starter packs, we set aside €1 for nature and the landscape along the route. At the end of December, we helped Natuurmonumenten (+-Dutch national trust) with €240 for the beautiful Hunting Lodge Mookerheide, right on our pilgrimage trail.

Hunting lodge Mookerheide Natuurmonumenten
Hunting lodge Mookerheide on the Walk of Wisdom

Hunting lodge Mookerheide: romance and SS

The Hunting Lodge appeals to our imagination. It was allegedly built to impress a sweetheart – in vain. In World War II it was the headquarters of the feared SS. But it is also the place where Catholic sisters have taken care of displaced girls. A woman who lived there as a girl once told us how loving she had experienced the help of the sisters.

Pilgrims of the Walk of Wisdom have been walking past the Hunting Lodge for years. While the lodge was slowly fading at first, it is now clearly regaining allure. During the restoration, no fewer than 16,000 beautiful mosaic tiles were revealed, which were previously hidden under a layer of stucco. We have now adopted sixteen of those tiles.

Would you also like to adopt a tile for €15? We raffle a free tour of Natuurmonumenten, among who does and sends us an email or puts a reply on Facebook. The Hunting Lodge is easy to reach: it is within walking distance of Mook-Molenhoek station. The date of the tour will be announced (some time after restauration). Help Natuurmonumenten and

Adopt tile Hunting Lodge

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Damiaan Messing

We support the Delta plan for the Landscape

Vereniging Nederlands Cultuurlandschap
Vereniging Nederlands Cultuurlandschap
Nederlands cultuurlandschap

Landscape contribution: thanks to all the pilgrims who recently registered, we have just transferred with much pleasure € 150 to ‘Vereniging Nederlands Cultuurlandschap (the Dutch Cultural Landscape Association). Specially for their: “Delta Plan for the Landscape”.

In this delta plan, 200,000 kilometers of Dutch fields, grass and ditch edges are designated as a green zone. Think of hedges and flowery strips that are good for insects and birds. Farmers get paid to manage the zone and everyone can enjoy the beauty through new walking and cycling paths. There is a model area of the plan in the Ooijpolder – the Walk of Wisdom walks past it (route maps 3 and 4).

Pollard willows Ooijpolder, model area Delta Plan for the Landscape

The clever thing about the plan is that nature lovers and farmers are not opposed to each other. They work together. The plan puts 12 billion euros into a fund once. The farmers are paid out of the annual revenue of 600 million euros. Thanks to this construction the plan is independent of uncertain subsidies “into eternity”.

FIVE times around the world

In an extensive analysis in ‘Vrij Nederland’, creator Jaap Dirkmaat states that we can restore the cultural landscape of the Netherlands with 80% of its biodiversity: the diversity of plants and animals that the Netherlands has to offer. It would create a green ribbon that goes around the earth five times. A blessing in a time of massive extinction of species due to the disappearance of their habitats and the use of poison. In combination with organic farmers without poison, the profit is even greater.

Top sport

“We must turn biodiversity into a top sport,” concludes Jaap Dirkmaat. That sounds good. Because even in top sport the impossible dream is the basis. Real Olympians cycle against the same mountain every day if necessary. And ultimately realize their dream – to the satisfaction of an entire country.

The Dutch article in Vrij Nederland

More about the contagiously ambitious “Delta Plan for the Dutch Landscape” on the website of ‘Nederlands Cultuurlandschap’ (it is in Dutch): link.

Landscape contribution Walk of Wisdom

We set aside at least € 1 of the registration fee for each pilgrim to pay for nature and landscape projects along the route. This year we hope to welcome around 1,500 new pilgrims. We are on schedule. More about registering: link

Pictures by Nederlands Cultuurlandschap

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