Local farmers used to let their cattle graze in this area. The lord of Haamstede Castle paid them for this. By kicking their hooves and grazing, you got a lot of different plants in the landscape. From the 1960s, farmers focused on tourists and the grazers disappeared. The dune grasslands became quite overgrown, but with many of the same plants and trees. Then the rabbits also got sick, so they too disappeared from the dunes. Lots of the same plants, means fewer animals. A big problem that had to be solved. Imagine you are a protector of the Sea Dunes. How would you solve it?
You can see very far here, not everything is overgrown. You see dune grassland, drifting sand and dune valleys. This is very rare in the Netherlands. To make sure it stays open, around 100 Shetland ponies walk around here. They eat dune reeds, saplings and tree bark. They also break up the soil. This allows the sand to be carried away by the wind, creating new sand dunes. Sand bees and sand beetles live in the sand and “sand plants” such as marram grass and sand seagrass grow there. This is how they protect the Sea Dunes from becoming overgrown. Handy gardeners, those Shetland ponies.
Take the 6th and 8th letters of these handy gardeners.
Burgh-Haamstede
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Liberation route Europe | De tien van Renesse Museum de Burghse School