A Taste of the Landscape Approach. Lessons from the Western Peat Meadow of The Netherlands

The Dutch approach to the peat meadow crisis reflects centuries of negotiation with water --- yet it also reveals a new humility. "Working with nature" is no longer a poetic phrase; it is a pragmatic necessity. The sight of restored peatlands surrounded by active farms evokes both optimism and tension, can the same land feed the economy and cool the climate?

At the heart of this question lies the landscape approach, an integrative way of seeing, managing, and governing land that transcends sectors and boundaries. It is as much about people as about peat. Through participatory design, shared governance, and multi-level collaboration, these initiatives show that transition requires not only science and technology but also empathy and trust.

Wetlands International Team (Photo: Yus Rusila Noor)

Reflections beyond the horizon

For Wetlands International and its partners, this visit is more than an exchange of knowledge. It is a mirror reflecting our own journey, from the deltas of Indonesia to the marshes of the Netherlands. Though geographically distant, both share a destiny written in water. The western peat meadows whisper lessons for tropical peatlands, that sustainable futures are built not by resisting change, but by reshaping relationships, between people and place, economy and ecology.

Perhaps that is the quiet beauty of these meadows, they invite us to slow down, to listen to landscapes as archives of memory and laboratories of hope. Restoration, in the end, is not about turning back time, but about learning how to inhabit the future, wisely, humbly, and together.