Full Interview – 2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up: Dutch Farmers and Fishermen: The People Who Feed Us with Peke Wouda:
Download mp4Listen to the MP3 audio file (Dutch)
“When these boats are gone, they’re gone…. [T]hey want to make sure they are not used for fishing again. They bring the ship to the scrapyard, and the first thing they do is to take a major chunk out of the bridge. That’s the end of it.”
~ Shrimp fisherman Peke Wouda
By Elze van Hamelen
Almost a third of Dutch shrimp fishermen have now applied for the government to buy out their boats. In 2022, the Dutch government practically declared shrimp fishermen “illegal” after using a nitrogen-calculation model called AERIUS to decree that their nitrogen emissions needed to be reduced to near zero. The government proposed a renewal of shrimp fishing permits in its Natura 2000 protected nature areas (the equivalent of the Wildlands Network in the U.S.), but only on the condition that the boats’ owners invest in a catalytic converter—a € 100,000 investment—of which the government subsidizes 50%. Notably, other shipping (containers, yachts) active in the same areas face no such requirements to lower emissions or “upgrade” their boats.
Not all small-business owners have the capability of making such expensive investments or the willingness to take the risk. However, the government’s offer of a buyout also comes with strings attached—the boats must be destroyed, the fishermen must turn in their fishing licenses, and they must agree that they will not start a new fishing business within the next five years.
In the same week when the permits were announced, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) admitted to major errors in the AERIUS model. Nonetheless, says the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature, this will have no impact on its issuance of conditional permits or its destruction of boats, as both are “voluntary” choices of the fishermen. The association of Dutch fishermen, EMK or “Unity gives power,” comments: “Is this really ‘voluntary,’ when there is mounting pressure from rules and regulations, and NGO pressure is turning our fishing grounds into forbidden zones?”
The report that I wrote in 2023 for Solari, Dutch Farmers and Fishermen: Local Heroes in the Global War on Our Food and Property Rights, describes how a policy tsunami of regulations is making running a profitable business impossible for both farmers and fishermen. When they reach the end of the line, with their backs against the wall, the government presents them with an “offer they can’t refuse.”
The Dutch Farmers and Fishermen report also documents the nefarious role of NGOs, which are operating as a fifth column to implement a worldwide UN land grab disguised as conservation policy.
Over the last 10 years, the fleet of larger fishermen’s boats in the Netherlands has been reduced by half, after the government offered fishermen similar “solutions” to the ones extended to the shrimp fisheries. In my 2023 Solari Report interview with Peke Wouda, he warned that he and his fellow shrimp fishermen would be next in line. And they are.
Listen to the interview with Wouda HERE.
Sources (in Dutch):
Nieuwe vergunningen ter inzage [Fishing application shrimp fishing 2025]
Brandbrief vissers (60% van de boten) [Letter of recognition existing use of professional fishing in Natura 2000 areas: Broad coalition declares a state of emergency]
Tien jaar fout stikstofbeleid: hoe het RIVM de kustvisserij en boeren op slot zette en Han Lindeboom gelijk kreeg [Ten years of wrong nitrogen policy: how RIVM locked coastal fishing and farmers and put Han Lindeboom right]
Related at the Solari Report:
2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up: Dutch Farmers and Fishermen – PDF Now Available!
2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up: Dutch Farmers and Fishermen with Elze van Hamelen
2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up: Dutch Farmers and Fishermen with Peke Wouda
2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up: Dutch Farmers and Fishermen with Jurie Post
2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up: Dutch Farmers and Fishermen with Jeroen van Maanen
The Land Grab with Carolyn Betts, Esq.
Movie of the Week: January 15, 2024: Nitrogen 2000: The Dutch Farmers’ Struggle
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