Much more money and yet much less meadow birds

Six years ago wrote Tom Goemaere and others on Yoors already about the disappearance of the Godwit. All this by papping and keeping wet policy of when the Ministry of Agriculture. Although eight times as much money went to the preservation of meadow birds between 2001 and 2020, their number has halved. Since the nineties, the number of breeding pairs of godwithas has decreased around 65 percent. The policy for the conservation of meadow birds, such as the godwit, did not work in the Netherlands. The General Court of Auditors states that in a report published Tuesday. It says: “The subsidy for peasants to protect pasture birds grew from 42 million euros in 2001 to 334 million euros in 2020. But in the same period, the number of breeding pairs of godwitto fell from 60,000 to 30,000.” The cause of the disappearance of the meadow birds is known, but the government does not dare to take the necessary measures.

Bottleneck: intensive agriculture
The main bottleneck is the intensification of agriculture. In the high-yielding, uniform Dutch meadows, in which the groundwater level is artificially kept low, young godwitto find too few insects. In addition, many eggs and young are lost because farmers mow their grass early. Finally, young godwits in the open, bare pastures are a relatively easy prey for predators, such as foxes.

Draining of peat pasture areas does not only affect subsidence: in the drier soil, pasture birds can find less food. The Innovation Program Veen investigates whether vernalization with pressure drains also has a positive effect on meadow birds.

Meadow bird protectors

Three enthusiastic volunteers who walk in the meadows for hours to take measures to protect our meadow birds.