As a member of the European Landowners' Organization, the Federation has a voice in decisions made in Europe, concerning rules and regulations on EU policy areas like Agriculture and Rural Development and also those of Forestry, Nature and the Environment. It is of great importance that FPG informs and convinces not only the decision makers in Brussels, but also the appropriate policy makers in The Hague. For it is a well known fact that many European political decisions for the Netherlands originate from The Hague.
For centuries, private landowners have been taking care of a vital and attractive countryside. They do so with inspiration and entrepreneurship. Energetically, professionally and committed, they take social responsibility for a sustainable production of food and raw materials, conservation of cultural heritage, landscape diversity, conservation of a rich biodiversity and natural resources. The FPG joins forces and looks after the interests of private land managers, aimed at the conservation and development of a balanced countryside in the Netherlands. FPG has a mission based on the basis of its conviction that private landownership is the key to the development and conservation of a vital and attractive countryside in a highly urbanised country.
The FPG is partner in the project 'European networks for private land conservation (LIFE ENPLC)'.
Climate warming and the increasing loss of biodiversity constitute an existential threat to private land. The core objective of this project is to develop an EU-wide network of private land conservation practitioners leveraging innovative private land conservation tools to mitigate the damage and preserve the land’s value for the next generations.
To establish that sustainably the Conservation Landowners Coalition (CLC), a union between landowners and conservationists, was founded. The project is focusing on the most promising private landowner conservation tools (PLC tools), emphasising conservation easements. We test and support their wider uptake, engage in the reform of supportive fiscal and other systems incentivising PLC, continue the development of PLC standards and practices, and help with the development of organisations and their networks dealing with PLC (following the US “land trust” model). We are working with volunteers and citizen scientists on voluntary private land conservation.
For communication purposes, PLC Ambassadors who showcase concrete actions, issues and solutions will be nominated, reaching out to relevant administrations, to better involve national/regional authorities in developing private land conservation initiatives in their jurisdiction.
The FPG staff member for international contacts is Mrs. Aster Leuftink.
You may contact her through e-mail: fpg[AT]grondbezit.nl, phone: (+31) (0)318 - 578 550 or post: Horapark, Bennekomseweg 43, 6717 LL Ede, The Netherlands.
