Co-initiator Geert Aarts with a flip-over full of ideas for S4F Wageningen. Photo Marieke Enter Developing outreach courses for scientists wanting to protest. And: unlocking Wageningen’s scientific expertise for the societal debate so that no time is lost discussing what the facts are. Furthermore: promoting other relevant initiatives within the Wageningen community, for example, the (highly current) petition by associate professor Jeroen Candel (see box below). And, of course, making the campus vegetarian, nature inclusive and vehicle-restricted, and severing all (financial) ties with the fossil sector.
During the founding event yesterday, there was no shortage of ideas about what Scientists4Future Wageningen could do. Well over thirty people joined the session, initiated by assistant professor Ignas Heitkönig and researchers Susanne van Donk and Geert Aarts, in person. Additionally, several staff members and students joined online. ‘Quite a few young people’, said Heitkönig during his opening statement.
Decisiveness
Now that a beginning has been made and the first ideas have been put forward, it is time for action. With a steering committee and work groups, but more importantly, with many decisive forms of collaboration, the initiators envision. How precisely this collaboration is to be shaped will soon become apparent. ‘We know that many students, scientists and supporting staff members have grave concerns about the planet’, says Aarts, who came to Wageningen from Texel, especially for this meeting. ‘We aim for the Wageningen Scientists4Future group to develop into the way to convert our concerns into action’, Van Donk adds.
A next meeting during which the ideas will be made more concrete is to be scheduled shortly. Interested employees and students are more than welcome and may register through the S4F Wageningen Teams group or by sending an e-mail to Heitkönig.
About ‘Candel’s petition’
The petition initiated by Jeroen Candel calling on the House of Representatives and the cabinet to reconsider their position on a European proposal for a nature recovery law was launched with the support of S4F Wageningen but not under its banner. ‘Sadly, both the Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and a majority of representatives in the house turned against this law that prohibits exacerbation of damage to nature’, Candel writes in a clarification. He refers to the motion submitted by BBB representative Caroline van de Plas, which was accepted with 81 votes in favour. The motion requests the cabinet make every conceivable effort to have the law taken off the table ‘to prevent the Netherlands from being locked’. Candel and the other signers claim that such a prohibition is sorely needed ‘because politicians will otherwise always place short-term economic interests above the recovery of nature and making the economy fundamentally more sustainable’. On Wednesday, 26 October, at 9:30 am, the petition had been signed 3500 times already.
