Mogelijkheden om rechten van de natuur vorm te geven in de gemeente Eijsden-Margraten

Further to a voted motion in the municipality council of Eijsden-Margraten (The Netherlands), research was carried out concerning the legal and practical feasibility of assigning legal personhood to municipal nature. Under private law, such an option does not exist in the Netherlands, unless the legislator amends the civil code. It is however possible to charge a foundation or society with the promotion and protection of the interests of municipal nature, without attribution of legal personhood. Nevertheless, municipal nature’s interests can be better promoted through environmental law (the Dutch ‘Omgevingswet’), as indeed intended by the legislator (see the explanatory memorandum of the supplementary nature conservation law accompanying the ‘Omgevingswet’). An option is to charge the municipal advisory committee with providing the Board and the Council, on request or on its own initiative, with advise concerning the interests of nature and landscape. Self-binding guidelines (‘beleidsregels’) may enhance the status of such advise. Furthermore, municipalities may strengthen their policies and municipal legislation concerning nature and landscape, and they may assign protected municipal nature or landscape monument areas. Interviews with the political groups represented in the municipality council and with an array of NGOs and interested organisations as regards nature, landscape, agriculture and tourism showed that, overall, broad support exists for an expanded role of the municipal advisory committee as regards nature and landscape, supplemented with the legislative options offered by the ‘Omgevingswet’. The main concern expressed was that increased protection of nature and landscape should not come at the expense of the profitability and future of agriculture and space for the much needed upscaling of house building in the municipality.