Defragmentation: Lessons from Dutch wilding initiatives

Over the past few decades, the construction of highways, waterways, and railways in the Netherlands resulted in the fragmentation of natural areas. Wildlife became increasingly became trapped in unnaturally small habitats with no way to move across the landscape. This has occurred across Kent, where landscapes such as the Blean suffer from fragmentation. While this region boasts the largest area of ancient woodland in Southern England, each individual woodland stands as isolated islands, meaning wildlife and people cannot move across the landscape freely. 

The Dutch, who confront similar challenges to those faced in Kent, have been implementing landscape-scale wilding for the last three decades. Their approach to ‘nature development’, as they term it, has demonstrated significant economic and livelihood benefits for people. Now, approximately 15% of the Netherland’s land area is genuinely managed for nature. Kent struggles to claim even 3%. 

Defragmentation work 

To address the issue of fragmentation caused by infrastructure, the Dutch central government commissioned the Dutch Multi-Year Program for Defragmentation (MJPO) in 2005. In collaboration with local authorities, academic institutions, and NGOs, this program identified bottlenecks caused by existing infrastructure and devised defragmentation measures needed.  

These efforts included the installation of wildlife crossings, ecoducts, ecoculverts, wildlife-friendly banks along existing transportation networks and infrastructure to allow wildlife to easily navigate across the landscape. 

By 2018, 72% of the 176 bottlenecks had been removed, with over 500 wildlife crossings established. Extensive monitoring has revealed that these measures are actively being used by wildlife, significantly contributing to the Netherlands Nature Network, the comprehensive network of wildlife conservation plans. 

In contrast, Britain lacks a comparable initiative. Here, wildlife populations are fragmented by infrastructure, resulting in isolated, vulnerable sub-populations. While the Nature Recovery Network aims to enhance connectivity, it falls short of addressing this fundamental issue.