Heritage and biodiversity

Biodiversity has been steadily declining for decades. This disappearance of species and varieties is throwing nature out of balance, and that poses a real threat to our planet. And to us too, because humans, our food and our drinks, … It is all part of that ecosystem. It is not without reason that a few years ago, in 2020, the Report on the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Bringing nature back into our lives was presented to tackle this problem. For measures such as making the agricultural landscape more diverse again with hedges, ponds, fallow land, etc. or combating the decline of pollinators with the help of citizen science, it can be interesting to involve intangible heritage and heritage practitioners. Knowledge and expertise around small landscape elements, or also the care for pollinators and their environment, can inspire, help slow down the loss of biodiversity and promote the conservation of these endangered species and varieties.

The Centre for Agrarian History (CAG) and the Dutch Centre for Intangible Heritage (KIEN) are therefore committed to highlighting the link between nature and heritage. Together with heritage communities and researchers, we are exploring the positive impact of this traditional knowledge and techniques on biodiversity in the international project ‘Water & Land. Intangible heritage and sustainable development’. In the theme year ‘Conservation of biodiversity’, we will do this using two intangible heritage practices: hedge laying and beekeeping.

The inspiring practice of hedge laying

For centuries, hedge laying served to create impenetrable barriers. Through various techniques and styles, hedges were densified and rejuvenated, creating an impenetrable, wooden barrier that could keep animals in a pasture when desired, or keep them out of a field when necessary. Hedges were omnipresent in the landscape for centuries, but after the Second World War they increasingly disappeared as a result of scaling up or were replaced by barbed wire. Together with the hedges, the craftsmanship of hedge laying also largely disappeared from the scene. The management technique of hedge laying is now only mastered by a few in Flanders and the Netherlands (and beyond). However, it is currently on the rise: more and more courses are organised every year.

If you plant a hedge, if you maintain it regularly and trim it, it also fulfils its ecological functions. It blooms, it provides nesting opportunities, it provides nectar production, it provides everything.

— Dirk Cuvelier , former coordinator RL Westhoek

Hedges also offer many advantages in agriculture: wind breaking along fields, less erosion and drying out of the soil, less runoff and better regulation of natural drainage. More specifically, there are many ecosystem services associated with the laid hedge. They offer cultural ecosystem services, such as an experience value in a green environment. The hedges provide peace in the landscape, and the laying itself provides mental peace for the layer. Then there are productive ecosystem services, for example that hedges contribute to a diverse gene pool through their species diversity. They also fulfil the function of wood production, or food production if they are given the role of fodder hedge. And also regulating ecosystem services can be attributed to the (laid) hedges. The hedges protect us against erosion and flooding, contribute to soil fertility and play a role in carbon storage.

If you can calculate how much carbon is stored and what the contribution of hedges is to avoiding all kinds of damage, such as the spread of pests, flooding or counteracting the effects of drought, then you come to considerable amounts per kilometer of hedge that represent that value.

– Kenneth Rijsdijk – biogeographer Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics - University of Amsterdam

Many advantages are therefore associated with the (laid) hedge. Simply reintroducing hedges into the landscape is not easy, but small steps are being taken. Together with the renewed interest in hedge laying, we can achieve 'behedged' landscapes that benefit both people and nature.

Beekeepers, inspired by biodiversity

Hobby beekeepers can make a big difference, in the area of ​​knowledge transfer on biodiversity and new techniques. It is wonderful how that old craft has survived. And if we look at the new technologies that are being used not so much to push that old craft away, but to start valorizing that old craft again. I think that is wonderful.

- René De Backer, chairman of the Flemish Bee Institute

The role of bees cannot be underestimated. Bees, together with various other pollinators, ensure our pollination and thus 75 to 80% of our food. But an age-old heritage practice such as beekeeping has more impact than just pollination. For example, beekeepers have a signaling function. If the honeybee is doing badly, that means that other insects are also threatened. The beekeeper can share his observations in citizen science projects and thus contribute to innovation and scientific insights into climate change.

And by cherishing their bees, beekeepers care for their environment. Plantings of both nectar plants for the honeybee, and native flowers and plants provide the environment with more greenery and especially with food for the honeybees and other pollinators. This care for the environment is also emphasized by beekeepers such as Aat Rietveld, who was vice-chairman of the Dutch Beekeepers Association for many years: “We used to talk about nectar plants that were good for honeybees. And then we would sow them and ask ourselves how many honeybee colonies can livehere? Now we say: what are we going to sow? Do we choose native crops, for example? Do we choose to restore biodiversity? That does not have to be in conflict with each other.”

(Intangible) heritage as a lever for a more sustainable future