Dupan, the Dutch foundation for a sustainable eel sector set up by businesses in the sector, is located in Plus Ultra. The office is run by Norbert Jeronimus, the secretary of Dupan as well as the director of communication bureau Jenx, located one door up.
Dupan was founded in 2010 with the aim of contributing to the Dutch Eel Management Plan. The foundation manages the Eel Stewardship Fund, a fund for non-statutory measures to benefit eel stocks. Examples of what Dupan does are: releasing more young eels than the agreed minimum into Dutch inland waterways, and lifting the adult eels over dykes and waterworks so they can swim to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.
The foundation also co-finances the Eel Reproduction Innovation Centre in Wageningen, where WUR researcher Arjan Palstra studies the reproduction of eels.
Dupan will continue to invest in research to help the European eel to thrive.
That reproduction is a mysterious process, but after five years of research, Palstra can now reproduce eel larvae. Breeding has not yet been successful though, because we don’t know what baby eels eat. Dupan has been housed on the Wageningen campus since 2014, and has commissioned other research at WUR too, such as studies of balance calculations. ‘That research shows how the eel sector can reduce its impact on nature and increase the eel population in Dutch waters to a sustainable higher level,’ says Jeronimus. ‘Dupan will continue to invest in research to help the European eel to thrive.’
