Author Archives: Dirk Roep

About Dirk Roep

I'm Assistant professor at the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University. Besides teaching and supervising thesis students, I'm involved in research on regenerative agriculture, food provisioning and place-based development with a particular focus on the transformative practices, joint learning and innovation and institutional reform.

The experiences of Dutch livestock owners with wolf damage compensation schemes – MSc Research practice by Jasmijn Keuning

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‘The experiences of Dutch livestock owners with wolf damage compensation schemes: Analyzing compensation payments through a lens of environmental justice‘, is a MSc Research practice report by Jasmijn Keuning (jasmijn.keuning@wur.nl), MSc student International Development and Forest and Nature Conservation of Wageningen University.

A MSc student interested in an academic career can opt for a research practice in stead of an regular internship and thus gain relevant work experience at an academic level. Below the Abstract. The report also includes a Summary in both English and Dutch.

Abstract
After 140 years of absence, the Netherlands is once again housing one of Europe its largest predators, the wolf. This has caused human-wolf conflict to reemerge, of which the main cause is the depredation on livestock. To mitigate this conflict between farmers and wolves, the Dutch government has implemented a compensation scheme. Compensation schemes are one of the most common ways through which policy-makers try to mitigate human-wildlife conflict, but remain controversial. This research aims to create a deeper understanding of the perspectives, experiences and attitudes of Dutch farmers towards wolf damage compensation payments and thereby, wolf management more broadly by studying this tool through the Environmental Justice framework. A case study has been adopted on the South-Eastern provinces of the Netherlands, for which 15 semi-structured interviews have been conducted with the organization handling compensation payments, farmers organizations, an ecologist and livestock owners from this region. The findings suggest that the arrival of the wolf to the Netherlands has created new insecurities for farmers’ livelihoods, which are caused by wolf presence itself and the system that has been set up to manage this presence and its impact. By analyzing farmers’ experiences with compensation payments in a framework of environmental justice, this research demonstrates that only focusing on compensation is insufficient to create a sense of environmental justice among farmers, and thereby mitigate human-wolf conflict, since compensation payments alone are unable to address all challenges that cause insecurity among farmers. This study concludes that while compensation payments continue to be an important focus point of wolf policy, it can be understood as only a last step in building a supportive base for wolf presence in the Netherlands. Instead, more emphasis should be given to improvements at the beginning of the process, before damage has occurred.

Key words: human-wildlife conflict, compensation payments, environmental justice, livestock depredation, livestock owners.

Webinar 5: A Just Future for the Global Countryside? by Michael Woods @WoodsZzp

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A Just Future for the Global Countryside? by prof. Michael Woods, Aberystwyth University, Thursday March 31, 2022, 12.00-13.30 (CET).

The talk is part of the Rural Sociology 75th Anniversary webinar series ‘Looking back, Looking Forward: Setting a future agenda for rural sociology’. Watch recordings of the webinars series at Rural Sociology Youtube channel.

The event will be streamed by Teams. Email to mark.vicol@wur.nl to register yourself.

CONVIVIALITY all-virtual conference rescheduled to October 4-10, 2021

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Join us to explore predicaments of agriculture, biodiversity, and conservation with a focus on CONVIVIALITY –where plants, animals, and humans attempt to live and thrive together.

The all-virtual, open-access, asynchronous conference will take place the week of October 4-10, 2021, featuring 6 keynote interventions, research presentations, and commentary from scholars, indigenous practitioners, and farmers from around the world.

In a time of pandemic, climate change, and unprecedented demands on our time and attention, the asynchronous, virtual format means that your engagement can be as flexible and intense as you can accommodate at this time. Attendees are asked to watch presentations on demand, and engage with written comments — although audio and visual interventions are possible as well.

For more information, see https://perc.ac.nz/wordpress/conviviality/

Webinar 4: Mundane normativity and the everyday handling of contested food consumption by prof. Bente Halkier

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Mundane normativity and the everyday handling of contested food consumption by prof. Bente Halkier, University of Copenhagen, August 30, 16.00-17.30 (CET):

“Food in everyday life is contested from multiple kinds of public debates in present societies such as climate, health, risk, environment and quality, which point to food consumption in everyday life as a site of normative action In the various strands of sociological research on consumption, contested consumption has typically been studied in two strands One strand tends to focus on the mundane routines in consumption that are reproduced, thus to some degree avoiding the normative dimension in the consumption activities themselves Another strand tends to focus directly on political and ethical consumption, thus to some degree ignoring the more mundane dealings with the normative dimension. My contention is that there is some middle ground to cover between each of the two otherwise valuable strands of consumption research if consumption research is to understand the normative dimension of consumption more fully In order to conceptualize such middle ground, an unfolding of the category of mundane normativity and its conditions is useful, and food consumption in everyday life is a clear example with which to think.“

The talk is part of the Rural Sociology 75th Anniverary webinar series ‘Looking back, Looking Forward: Setting a future agenda for rural sociology’.

The event will be streamed by Zoom. You can now register for the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VpRUm51-QberdN-QyKWe0w

Green Care practices and place-based sustainability transformations: a participatory action-oriented study in Finland – PhD-thesis by Angela Moriggi

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June 1 2021, at 11.00 am (CET) Angela Moriggi will defend her PhD-thesis ‘Green Care practices and place-based sustainability transformations: A participatory action-oriented study in Finland‘. See the Abstract below. The full thesis can be downloaded from the WUR Library after the defense ceremony, or by clicking its DOI.

The ceremony will be live-streamed by Weblectures.wur.nl, but is recorded and can be viewed later as well. Angela Moriggi was appointed as research fellow at the EU funded MSCA ITN project SUSPLACE, employed by the Natural Resources Institute of Finland (LUKE) and PhD-candidate at the Rural Sociology Group of Wageningen University. Since April 2021 she holds a position as research fellow at the Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture, and Forestry (TESAF) of the University of Padova.

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