If you had to point out the buckle somewhere on the Dutch Bible Belt, the well-known diagonal from Zierikzee to Zwolle, you would probably end up in Stroe.
At first glance, there is little that distinguishes this Veluwe town, with 1,650 inhabitants, a middle class in size, from church villages in the area. Here too, the SGP was the largest party in the last municipal elections, albeit with 21.4 percent, but 0.4 percent larger than the VVD.
But still, you only have to stroll through Stroe or something starts to stand out. Stroe is a church village without a church tower. The 265 inhabitants of neighboring Kootwijk have two church buildings. Not to mention the much larger Kootwijkerbroek. There are several whoppers of churches with sometimes thousands of seats; an additional one is even being built, for the Reformed Congregations in the Netherlands. Not to be confused with the Reformed Congregations and the Old Reformed Congregations, just to outline the ecclesiastical divisions. “If your birthday is on a Sunday in Kootwijkerbroek, you don’t even celebrate it”, says 71-year-old Stroeenaar Gijs Vos, laughing, over coffee in ‘heemhuus’ de Schaapskooi, where he is a volunteer. “But here in Stroe we are open to everyone. Whether you are Catholic, Reformed, Reformed or nothing at all.”
To speak to the Reverend van Stroe, you have to knock on the door of Kootwijkerbroek. 250 of the 2,000 souls from his (Reformed) congregation live in Stroe, says Kees Visser from his manor the size of a country house. “A survey has been conducted into what people miss most in Stroe. The church was at the very bottom, still under a cemetery.”
Dried pine cones
The soul of the village, says Stroënaar Vos, is not located in the church, but in the Rijkszaadeest. Just behind the A1 viaduct there is one stone building here, with two wooden sheds next to it. From 1912 to 1978, pine cones were laid to dry here. These were then passed through the malle mill – a kind of drum – and sieved in a shaker, after which the seeds remained on the floor. “My father was the last seed boss in the village. So this is where I grew up, between the cones [dennenappels]”, says Fox. Behind the complex is another five hectares of experimental forest, where all kinds of seeds have blossomed.
Another villager, visual artist Joost van Veldhuizen (36), has been leading the foundation that has taken care of the Rijkszaadeest for two years now. “Everything is still here exactly as it was left in 1978,” he says, as he guides the visit through the dark rooms. “The buildings have only been painted and maintained and the machines are fully functional again.” He points to the climbing gear still hanging there. “Look, you can go up a tree with this. Picking teams from all over the Netherlands climbed the tree every winter to pick pine cones. They were delivered here by train.”
The site reveals something of the relationship that many Veluwe residents have to the nature that surrounds them. “At the beginning of the last century it was one big wasteland here, a sandy plain that stretched from Amersfoort to Apeldoorn,” says Vos. “Pine wood creaks before it breaks,” adds Van Veldhuizen. “That made pine trees very suitable for mining. At least that way you could get away if you heard something crack.”
The seeds extracted from the Rijkszaadeest ensured that the Veluwe became full of trees again. Van Veldhuizen: “At the beginning of the last century, only 4 percent of the Netherlands consisted of forest. When it ended here it was more than 10 percent.” And, teasingly: “Trees love nitrogen, don’t they.”
The nature that tourists and holidaymakers cherish so much (“Are you tired of urban life? Come to Stroe!”, is the slogan here) is not a given for the villagers themselves, but an achievement. They have built the forest here themselves, as it were, just as a city dweller builds city districts and a farmer works his land. “So if you want to protect nature”, Van Veldhuizen wonders somewhat rhetorically, “what do you take as a benchmark? What is real nature?”
Volunteer Vos says he understands little about the current course of Staatsbosbeheer, the organization that once set up the Rijkszaadeest in Stroe. “It sometimes seems like they think the beetles and beetles are more important than the trees.” He is also skeptical about the effect of nitrogen on nature. “I think the impoverishment of nature is more because of the insects, and because of the mess they make of the forest.” Sometimes he addresses the forester about it, for example when a storm has felled trees: “Why don’t you clear up that tree, I ask. But then he starts talking about all the life that is in such a dead tree. You just don’t understand, do you?”
Also read: Here you can see what nitrogen does. About the Diemerbos, a nightmare for ecologists
Dominee Visser wants to substantiate this view of nature biblically. “We have not been given nature to just let it take its course, but we have the task of sustaining creation.” In this view, man is emphatically above nature. The pastor says that he understands the farmers from his municipality, in their opposition to the announced nitrogen measures. “As a Christian, my sympathy is automatically with the weakest party. In this case, those are clearly the farmers.”
For many in his community, the last major government intervention – the culling of hundreds of thousands of animals during the foot-and-mouth crisis at the beginning of this century – is still fresh in their minds. “It is still believed that the sample that showed foot-and-mouth disease at the time is no good.” According to him, the desire for autonomy is deeply rooted in the DNA of the inhabitants of this region. “Everything is won here on the wasteland. That creates a feeling of ‘why should I listen to someone from the city now’?”
Artist Van Veldhuizen has tied a gingham colored handkerchief to his off-road vehicle as an expression of support for the farmers. “I am certainly not against organic farming or anything. We want to start distilling gin here soon, with pine cones in it. We do this completely circularly and sustainably. We fire with the residual heat from the cone oven here. But the Netherlands once stood for freedom. And since the corona crisis, I have had the feeling that there is a different agenda at play. One that has nothing to do with nature or health, but with control by the state.”
The area between the highway and the railway functions as a shop window to share views with commuters. Earlier, Van Veldhuizen had already written the word DJOKOVIC in large letters, a tribute to the tennis player who was not allowed to enter Australia without a vaccine. Now he is brooding on a new action. “I think of a 2D church, where you can see the country through the windows. So off This is my church.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 14 July 2022
#residents #Stroe #nature #achievement