Developing nature along Dutch Rivers: Place or non-place

Abstract

In ecological restoration projects in the Netherlands, agricultural landscapes in floodplains are being transformed into wetland reserves (so-called 'new nature'). Besides the fact that the support for these projects among local residents is often suboptimal, some more fundamental issues can be raised with regard to these projects. They tend to disturb (or even wipe out) the different 'textual' layers in the landscape (historical anthropogenic landforms and human artifacts), reduce the 'readability' of the land, the sense of place, thereby transforming genuine places into 'non-places'. In contrast, some restorationists claim that they bring out deeper 'textual' layers, implying that humans should widen the context in which they understand themselves and deepen their sense of place. Are ecological restoration areas places or non-places, do these projects endanger or rather enhance our sense of place, or do they escape this typology? © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.