My work keeps me outdoors most days, and nature is the Achterhoek’s greatest tourism attraction. Most visitors are calm and considerate. They are often middle-aged or older and come because they genuinely want to experience the landscape.
The main conflicts involve more active visitors. Mountain bikers can cause serious damage to walking and cycling paths, especially sandy tracks. Some leave designated routes, and many go too fast, without having the obligatory Dutch bicycle bell mounted on their handlebars.
A forest path cannot be peaceful when walkers must constantly look over their shoulders for a dangerous and respectless mountain biker.
We receive many complaints, and collisions happen more often than people may think. Touring motorcyclists also create noise and disturbance, although they are difficult to regulate. Our role is mainly to inform these groups and encourage more considerate behaviour.
As visitor numbers rise and people have more leisure time and money, environmental education becomes more important. Fortunately, most tourists are interested and thoughtful.
Our themed guided walks are led by people with different specialisms. They attract visitors and bring us new members. A growing membership signals to government that people value nature, which can strengthen the case for conservation investment. In that sense, tourism has been genuinely helpful.
Every visitor who becomes a nature-conservation member turns enjoyment of the landscape into a stronger public voice for protecting it.
Our greatest concern is the proposed Betuwelijn freight railway through the Achterhoek, although its construction is no longer certain. Nature reserves must remain connected so plants and animals can move between them. A railway would fragment habitats and impose noise and other pressures.
This is not a conflict created by tourism. It is the much older struggle between economic infrastructure and environmental protection. Too often, the economy wins.
Tourism has given conservation more supporters; we will need every one of them in a fight over connected landscapes that began long before visitors discovered the Achterhoek.