Target reached!

Hooray! We’ve reached the target amount! We want to thank all of you for your contributions! With your donations, you are helping to make the landscape of Limburg more biodiverse and climate-resilient, and providing examples of biodiversity restoration for the rest of The Netherlands.

Our recent activities

The first activities have already been made possible thanks to your contributions! In recent times, our researchers and implementation partners have focused on areas owned by five landowners. These areas are located outside Natura2000 sites, where it is often difficult to obtain subsidies for this kind of nature restoration. Our researchers focus on specific areas, where their measures have an effect on the entire landscape, thereby increasing the impact of their work!

Photo: Spreading species-rich hay for the improvement of the grassland

Sowing

In some of these areas, plant species have been sown. In certain places, the soil was rich in lime, but the expected species diversity typical of such soil was lacking. Therefore, small scabious was sown, a plant characteristic of lime-rich areas with high species richness, and which naturally used to occur frequently in the Geul Valley. Moreover, this plant provides nectar for many pollinating insects. In other areas, flowering herbs had been outcompeted by the dense sod of existing grasses. Therefore, these areas were extensively mowed, and in one location, the soil was even experimentally tilled, after which species-rich hay from a nearby field was spread over it, full of seeds from herbs that we hope to see return to the grassland. One of the key herbs for this transition is yellow rattle, which parasitizes grasses and can weaken them enough to allow other plants to grow again.

Planting and constructing

In addition, various shrubs have been planted and grafts constructed, which provide shelter for animals in the otherwise open landscape and help slow down rainwater runoff towards the valley.

The Future

Our researchers will continue to monitor these areas in the coming period to see if and how the landscape improves due to their interventions and where they might need to adjust. The first positive observations have already been made! In the created transitions from dry to moist/wet and from lime-poor to lime-rich, interesting and rare butterflies have appeared, such as the Short-tailed blue, the Mazarine blue, the Small skipper, and the Pale clouded yellow. In the future, they hope to also observe the rare Brown hairstreak (butterfly) here.

This would not have been possible without your support. Therefore, we want to thank you once again! In particular, we extend our gratitude to Het Cultuurfonds Limburg, the Dinamo Fund, Foundation Stichting Rosas Donamus, and the Elisabeth Strouven Fund for their generous contributions.

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