Together for biodiversity: new award for your initiative

Do you live in a rural area in the Netherlands, and do you have an idea or project that brings together the residents and the farmers in your area with the aim of boosting biodiversity? The Samen voor Biodiversiteitsprijs ('Together for Biodiversity Award') is a new Dutch prize that could see your initiative rewarded with €25,000!

"We're looking forward to receiving lots of inspiring ideas, and we hope this new prize will motivate even more people to come together for biodiversity", says the president of the jury, NIOO-researcher and former director Louise Vet, who is also the driving force behind the much-publicised Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery. "Every contribution to nature restoration in the Netherlands counts!"

Biodiversity is increasingly under threat, in the Netherlands as elsewhere. For insects, for instance, the impact of human activity has been nothing short of dramatic, as recent studies confirm. Attempts to turn the tide have produced a number of wonderful initiatives already, in which farmers and other land users have joined forces to restore biodiversity.

There have been projects to bring back wooded banks around farmland, for instance, to construct field margins rich in flora and fauna, and to invest in sustainable food production through 'food forests'. Farmers and private individuals have shouldered responsibility for these projects together to make them succesful.

"This new award is meant as an extra incentive for farmers and other residents of rural areas to join forces and help restore biodiversity to our farmland", says Louise Vet. The prize is an initiative of the Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery with funding from the Worldwide Fund for Nature. The deadline for submissions is 9 February 2020.
 

• For more details and submission rules, please go to http://www.samenvoorbiodiversiteit.nl/stimuleringsprijs.