ploughing. The fields are nowadays ploughed much deeper, and partly as a result of
this, this beautiful lily has almost completely disappeared. At the initiative of a
national initiative, called the Living Archive, an Action Plan is currently being
worked out in collaboration with the province of Drenthe and a large number of
organizations involved to preserve this characteristic plant for the Netherlands.
Within this platform, programmes will be set up for both genetic rescuing and
reintroduction of a wide range of priority species, a National Seed Bank will be
established, and for each target species, a tailored plan will be set up. Among the
target species there are many weeds from arable land. The Living Archive operates
conform a stepwise approach, including: (1) analysing habitat characteristics of stillexisting populations across the Netherlands, (2) assessing viability of these
populations, (3) identifying new suitable sites by comparing them to habitat characteristics of viable populations, (4) collecting seeds from suitable source
populations, (5) multiplying plant material through an ex situ breeding program,
(6) using viable off-spring for reinforcing existing impoverished populations and/or
reintroducing the species at former sites where the site conditions have been
improved, and (7) monitoring the reintroduction success (Schaminée et al. 2019).
Because of the change in agricultural practice, the species has disappeared from
the fields, but is still present in single places in gardens. For a long time, it was
thought that the Rye Lily in our country was not native, but had managed to establish
itself in the fields from gardens, but the story is exactly the other way round. The
plants in the gardens originates from the fields; the plants were so beautiful that they
were dug out in the wild and placed at home. The plant material that is still present is
authentic and autochthonous and can serve as source material for the intended
reintroduction. On the famous triptych of Hans Memling (from the fifteenth century), the Rye Lily is the last plant that the blissful can see at the foot of the stairs
before entering heaven.
The two examples also demonstrated the major challenges nature conservation in
rural areas is facing in the moment, at least in Europe but also in other parts of the
world: on the one hand intensification, on the other hand abandoning. In European
lowlands, especially in the densely populated northwest, intensification leads to a
dramatic drop of biodiversity on the sites under management, whereas in European
mountain ranges (as well as is in large parts of Eastern Europe, where traditional
agricultural survived for many centuries but now (after the collapse of the communism) is rapidly replaced by modern techniques and the huge increase in applying
artificial manure to increase the production. The dramatic changes in mountainous
areas was perfectly predicted more than 25 years ago in a study on the landscape
ecology of the Solano Basin in Tuscany, Italy, with the provocative title Vanishing
Tuscan Landscapes (Vos and Stortelder 1992).
414
J. H. J. Schaminée and N. M. van Rooijen
this, this beautiful lily has almost completely disappeared. At the initiative of a
national initiative, called the Living Archive, an Action Plan is currently being
worked out in collaboration with the province of Drenthe and a large number of
organizations involved to preserve this characteristic plant for the Netherlands.
Within this platform, programmes will be set up for both genetic rescuing and
reintroduction of a wide range of priority species, a National Seed Bank will be
established, and for each target species, a tailored plan will be set up. Among the
target species there are many weeds from arable land. The Living Archive operates
conform a stepwise approach, including: (1) analysing habitat characteristics of stillexisting populations across the Netherlands, (2) assessing viability of these
populations, (3) identifying new suitable sites by comparing them to habitat characteristics of viable populations, (4) collecting seeds from suitable source
populations, (5) multiplying plant material through an ex situ breeding program,
(6) using viable off-spring for reinforcing existing impoverished populations and/or
reintroducing the species at former sites where the site conditions have been
improved, and (7) monitoring the reintroduction success (Schaminée et al. 2019).
Because of the change in agricultural practice, the species has disappeared from
the fields, but is still present in single places in gardens. For a long time, it was
thought that the Rye Lily in our country was not native, but had managed to establish
itself in the fields from gardens, but the story is exactly the other way round. The
plants in the gardens originates from the fields; the plants were so beautiful that they
were dug out in the wild and placed at home. The plant material that is still present is
authentic and autochthonous and can serve as source material for the intended
reintroduction. On the famous triptych of Hans Memling (from the fifteenth century), the Rye Lily is the last plant that the blissful can see at the foot of the stairs
before entering heaven.
The two examples also demonstrated the major challenges nature conservation in
rural areas is facing in the moment, at least in Europe but also in other parts of the
world: on the one hand intensification, on the other hand abandoning. In European
lowlands, especially in the densely populated northwest, intensification leads to a
dramatic drop of biodiversity on the sites under management, whereas in European
mountain ranges (as well as is in large parts of Eastern Europe, where traditional
agricultural survived for many centuries but now (after the collapse of the communism) is rapidly replaced by modern techniques and the huge increase in applying
artificial manure to increase the production. The dramatic changes in mountainous
areas was perfectly predicted more than 25 years ago in a study on the landscape
ecology of the Solano Basin in Tuscany, Italy, with the provocative title Vanishing
Tuscan Landscapes (Vos and Stortelder 1992).
414
J. H. J. Schaminée and N. M. van Rooijen