Ecomare

The flood disaster of 1953 did not only lead to the Delta Plan. Hydraulic engineers also made plans whereby large parts of the Wadden Sea would be closed off and impoldered, substantially shortening the coastline. The Netherlands would gain a large amount of agricultural land. When the first step of this plan was to be taken in 1965, an enormous amount of protests erupted from nature lovers, tidal flat hikers and fishermen. The collection of protests led to the founding of the 'Waddenvereniging' (a lobby group to protect the wadden region). Slowly but surely, people have realized that these kinds of plans would cause enormous amounts of damage to nature. Instead, the government decided to raise the dikes along the wadden coast to delta height.