Weerribben-Wieden

Weerribben-Wieden National Park lies in the province of Overijssel, in the east of the Netherlands, and protects some 100 km². The De Weerribben sector was protected in 1986 and in 2009 was joined with De Wieden to form the present park.

It is the largest fen in north-western Europe and, like The Broads in England, an entirely man-made landscape: between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries peat was extracted systematically by digging long trenches, the trekgaten, leaving strips of land between them, the ribben, where the material was dried. That pattern of alternating water and land is what gives the landscape its geometry, recognisable from the air, and what has generated its ecological value.

The trenches have silted up naturally, producing a complete succession from open water to reedbed, floating fen and alder and willow carr. That gradation supports a very high biodiversity: the park holds the most important otter population in the Netherlands, reintroduced at the beginning of this century after the species' national extinction, alongside bittern, marsh harrier and a fen invertebrate community with very rare species. Traditional reed cutting for thatch is still practised and is a habitat management tool.