The present government’s coalition agreement confirms the vital importance of assembling the National Ecological Network by 2018. At the same time, the government is firmly keeping to its aim of more nature management by private landowners and less public acquisition of land.

To complete the assembly of the NEN in 2018, the current rate of creating ‘new’ nature areas will have to be increased. In particular, the area covered by long-term agreements (30 years) between government and private landowners, in which land is designated for nature conservation, remains short of the policy objectives. The change of course adopted by the previous coalition government involved doubling the target for ‘land for nature development under private management’ from 19,000 hectares to about 50,000 hectares. At the end of 2002 just 1% of this had been achieved. The number of agreements made with private landowners is increasing, but not fast enough to meet the target. In contrast to this limited uptake by private landowners, the area of agricultural land for sale is growing, in some provinces to such an extent that it exceeds the budgets available for land acquisition. 
Private landowners who manage existing nature areas tend to sign up to a package of basic measures with rather modest nature conservation requirements. They manage mainly forest areas.
Delays in assembling an interconnected NEN will probably put about half the plant and animal species that are threatened or protected under the BHD at a disadvantage. These are species sensitive to habitat fragmentation and for which large areas of ‘new’ nature areas need to be created or safeguarded by designation as part of the NEN.
The budget set by the present coalition government contains an extra 400 million euros for investment in the NEN in 2005–2007. With the shift from land acquisition to private sector management of nature areas, there should be sufficient money during the term of the present government to meet the objectives for ‘new’ nature areas.

Creating ‘new’ nature areas through agri-environmental schemes means lower quality objectives

The change in the direction of policy made by the previous coalition government in favour of greater use of agri-environmental schemes also means that 10% of the ‘new’ nature area that still has to be realized within the NEN (about 7000 hectares), will not be designated as nature area but will remain agricultural land. These areas will be subject to agri-environmental schemes. These schemes will run for an initial period of six years, at the end of which farmers will decide whether to enter into a further agreement or not. The ‘new’ nature areas still to be secured cannot be combined with conventional agricultural land uses and agricultural nature management without making concessions on the quality of natural habitats. Moreover, six years is too short a time to achieve quality objectives. A study in the province of Gelderland has revealed that about half the farmers who had taken part in an agri-environmental scheme did not extend the agreement at the end of the initial term. They found the procedures too slow and complicated, and applied too rigidly.