The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality asked the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) to elaborate, investigate and report on the theme of ‘nature and society’ for the Assessment of the Dutch Human Environment 2018. To this end PBL and Wageningen University & Research carried out a policy study. This report concerns a research project carried out as an input to the policy study.
The ‘nature and society’ theme is particularly relevant now because Dutch nature policy is in a period of transition. The aim is a radical deinstitutionalisation of nature policy, not only to achieve conservation objectives but also to retain and strengthen public and political support. This policy is set out in the government’s vision on nature, The Natural Way Forward (Natuurlijk verder), and the Nature Pact (Natuurpact). Besides conserving and increasing biodiversity, the aim of the policy is to strengthen social engagement with nature and strengthen the relationship between nature and economy. The question is what forms this social engagement takes, what determines whether or not initiatives by individuals, businesses and NGOs come to fruition and can be scaled up, and what we can expect from them in terms of biodiversity, conservation or contact with nature, as well as public support and greening the economy.
The aim of the research was to identify the conditions that are required to bring socially based natureinclusive practices to fruition and scale them up with a view to bringing about the transition in nature policy, focusing on factors which government is able to influence. The study was restricted to natureinclusive social initiatives, in particular those taken by businesses and individual entrepreneurs. This report, therefore, confines itself to nature-inclusive business activities rather than citizens’ initiatives, because citizens’ initiatives, in which economic considerations play a lesser role, have already been relatively widely investigated. The study focused on initiatives in four economic domains, because the content and dynamics of nature-inclusive business depend on the content and dynamics of the nature of the business activity itself, such as producing and selling houses, food or holiday homes. The four economic domains investigated were: nature-inclusive farming, urban agriculture, the construction industry and the holiday accommodation sector.
The study investigated the following four research questions:
1. What are the trends in nature-inclusive practices in agriculture, urban agriculture, the construction industry and the holiday accommodation sector?
2. What are the aims of nature-inclusive practices? Which discourses and development paths are taking shape and what are the interactions between these discourses?
3. What are the biggest opportunities for and barriers to the further upscaling of nature-inclusive practices?
4. What options are there to increase these opportunities?
The research was an explorative study based on a document analysis, interviews and group discussions with stakeholders who have a good grasp of the trend in nature-inclusive practices in their sectors, rather than detailed knowledge of specific initiatives. The study examined four types of nature-inclusive practices: nature-inclusive farming, urban agriculture, nature-inclusive construction, and holiday accommodation and nature – the last focusing in particular on the Zeeland coastal vision policy document (Zeeuwse Kustvisie). The initiatives examined are not cases studies as such, but more in the way of interesting practices from which conclusions can be drawn (not included in this summary). To supplement this, some overarching conclusions and recommendations have also been formulated. The analytical framework used in the study was a combination of the transition and policy arrangement approaches.
Source: Farjon, J. M. J., Gerritsen, A. L., Donders, J. L. M., Langers, F., & Nieuwenhuizen, W. (Eds.) (2018). Condities voor natuurinclusief handelen: Analyse van vier praktijken van natuurinclusief ondernemen. (WOt-technical report; No. 121). Wettelijke Onderzoekstaken Natuur & Milieu. https://doi.org/10.18174/461494