The formal name of the country is Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country is more popularly known to the world as Holland and the people who live there are called Dutch. This is one of the trick questions in the elimination round of the geography quiz bee when I was in grade school. What do you call the citizens of Holland? Answer: Holes! The country is known as one of the most liberal and tolerant in Europe if not the whole world. The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy with strong democratic and independent foundations. Queen Beatrix is the sovereign. But Dutch monarchs are never crowned, they have an investiture ceremony akin to a Presidential inaugural in a republic. It is no surprise since Holland used to be a republic for over 200 years. Because of their history, the Dutch have a society characterized by consensus. The Dutch Catholic Church is fiercely independent, one branch consists of the Utrecht Union (independent of Rome) and the one still with Rome was a major cause of John Paul II’s and now Benedict XVI’s headaches. Dutch Protestants are independent and go against what Protestants usually think. All these in the most secular society in the world.
The Dutch come to mind in the Pinoy psych now that TS Ondoy (Ketsana) and TY Pepeng (Parma) deluged and continues to deluge northern Philippines. Several commentators and op ed columnists, editorials and blog posts have suggested that we Pinoys do a Dutch in solving our flood woes. However this is reason why I had to introduce the Dutch in this blog post. They are a unique society in the whole world. Among Filipino societies, I suppose it is the Ivatans that may be most like the Dutch in terms of natural hazards awareness.
Sixty percent (60%) of Dutch people live below sea level and they live in reclaimed areas called “polders” some of which were reclaimed 1ooo years ago when Holland was becoming a nation. This is the reason why the whole national and cultural identity of the Dutch is formed by adapting to flooding. The “Hans Brinker and his finger in the dike” tale is best known among Anglophones (Because the story is a 19th century American tale!) The geographer Jared Diamond describes Dutch society in having a “polder mentality”.
The windmills and canals are evidence of their polder lifestyle. BTW the windmills now are more of a tourist draw than anything else.
The Dutch have the highest awareness of environmental issues and disasters in the world. Though with a large middle class in their society, the Dutch insist that their rich do not live on higher ground in the polders while the poor live on the lower ground. All rich or poor live on the same level. They also say that you have to get along with your enemy since he/she may be responsible for operating the pump in your polder.
For the Dutch, your neighbour’s survival is yours and yours is his/her’s. There are no gated communities in Holland say the Dutch. The whole of society is gated against the water and not from each otehr.
In the Philippines taking cue from the Americans, the rich tend to isolate themselves from the rest of society in gated communities. The rich think that by “defending” themselves from the less wealthy live the fantasy that they can remain unaffected by environmental concerns troubling the rest of the hoi polloi. Ondoy conveniently flushed out that mentality!
Jared Diamond must be paraphrased from his opus “Collapse”
“The Filipino wealthy in their gated communities found that they merely bought the privilege of being the last to drown.”
So far the op ed gurus are looking at the engineering aspects of the Dutch solution. But like the Louisianians after Katrina realised, even if the engineering solutions mitigate the problem while the social problems fester, recovery would be impossible. To this day, New Orleans hasn’t recovered. Around the corner from Bourbon Street many of the old touristy spots are boarded still. Louisiana’s officials have approached the Dutch for solutions.
Dutch has a lot a teach us about THE MAJOR SOLUTION to our flooding problems require strong political will (which the Dutch have in democratic consensus). It inevitably that social engineering and not just engineering is required. The last flood that sank the Netherlands was on February, 1 1953 when a winter storm breached the dikes and killed about 2,000 rich, middle class and poor people. The Netherlands embarked on a 30 year and costly effort to build their flood defences. The Dutch had to give up what is lost and to defend what can be saved.
Thus today the odds that the whole country will sink is 1:10,000. Even this worries the Dutch still!
I know this since I visited Holland once and my Dutch colleagues told me about this. My environmental science institute in UP is now headed by a Holland trained environmental scientist Dr Rene Rollon. He observes that the Dutch mentality about environmental hazards is even evident in daily life.
First the Dutch are particular about punctuality. My Rotterdam based colleague says that this is important in being at the right place at the right time when there is a flood threat.
Also the Dutch are so preoccupied of getting value for money. Rene says that the public wants to see results fast when their tax money is spent. Nobody has complained about the cost of the flood defences.
I never lived in Holland but just spent a week there, but Rene says the Dutch have no culture of complaining but even then there is a bit of discontent as the recession takes its bite. But still the consensus idea reigns.
And lastly, the term Dutch treat is apparently true. In a dinner date, unless you agree beforehand, each party is expected to share the tab. This is real democratic consensus! They are also frugal. I believe that you won’t see Queen Beatrix eating at a dinner costing thousands of dollars/euros without a worthy cause. And her being a Queen is not a worthy enough reason. Tell that to the Presidential Palace apologists by the flood prone Pasig River.
So when the Pinoy blurbs say that UP geology prof Dr CP David says that people in the Marikina Valley floodplain had 9 hours to move out, would this work if we Pinoys don’t have that sense of time the Dutch have?
So maybe we should give Holland more importance for its contribution to world culture and science than the Marca Pina Keso de Bola we eat every Noche Buena!
The Dutch teach everyone on the planet that truism as if you are on a boat. One hand for the boat and one hand for the other person!
And BTW while the Dutch are slightly peeved at the American origin of the Boy and the Dike story, they are practical enough to erect a statue about it in order to get the American tourist dollars!
Popularity: 1% [?]
The tulips, you forgot about the tulips.
And the marijuana in Amsterdam, and the red light district.
In Hawaii, people get Island Fever and have to escape to the mainland now and then to get cured. In Holland, I fear that those with claustrophobia or fear or drowning would have a rough time.
Being on time. Odd concept, what?
Joe
odd concept for many Pinoys, especially the elite
An Amsterdam teen-ager who fears drowning only need to move to a flood-free neighborhood of Antwerp (unemployment rate 16%). Or Bruges. If to this teen-ager the entire Holland is not to his liking, he can take the train to Bonn or to the Swiss Alps.
That’s one of the benefits of being an EU national!
Joe,
The marijuana in amsterdam. That shows you how much more civilized the Dutch are. Although not as advanced as the Portuguese who decided to decriminalize all drugs because prohibition does not work. Let those who are old enough to vote people decide what to put into their bodies,
MB,
Hear hear!
Joe
Have they legalized marijuana? I admire countries that legalize marijuana. Although all they need to illegalize is the rolling and turning into joints. hehe
“How silly can you get?”
Nobel Peace Prize to Obama.
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At minimum, the award is way too early.
Wait until a year after US troops have left Iraq
to see if Muslim-on-Muslim warfare subsides in that country.
UP n,
Silly is someone who thinks he knows more than the distinguished panel who made the award.
Who has done more, really, than Mr. Obama, to recast the entire world dialogue in an earnest, intelligent, participative way? He was granted a special platform by his dramatic breakthrough of the racial glass ceiling, the highest in the US, and he has used that podium in consistently beneficial (and peaceful) ways.
No one else had the platform, the ability to reshape the Muslim-US dialogue with one speech in Cairo, the ability to redefine relations with Europe, Russia and China by diplomatic engagement instead of independent force, the ability to resurrect a stalled nuclear disarmament dialogue with Russia and end the building cold-war confrontation by terminating the defensive missile shield that was so irritating to Russia, the ability to engage Russia and China on Iran and North Korea, the ability to end the childish denial of Cuba’s right to self determination, the fairness to stand up to Israel obstinacy about building settlements in the future Palestine, the ending of torture that was so offensive to civilized sensibilities, the wisdom to defer meeting with the Dalai Lama in favor of an harmonious meeting with China’s premier. This is a very productive, bright, dignified, classy president.
Who would you propose did more for world peace this past year?
When US fighting troops are out of Iraq, it will be the same murderous mess that it has been for millennia, power struggles among a hateful, emotional people, deeply divided among ethnic and religious lines. Obama’s commitment to the US (and World) was to end the errant US engagement in a war that should not have been. If the Iraqi’s are not responsible enough to deal constructively with the opportunity they have been given, it is correctly an Iraqi problem.
Joe
Obama, and sooner more than later, should send 40,000 (or more) US soldiers into Afghanistan, don’t you agree?
JoeAm: “premature…”. Just read this cut-and-paste because it captures why I say “premature… award for promises of what can be as opposed to what has been accomplished.” And there is sniping/politics, too, Obama winning Nobel is also a bit because of Bush.
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Obama is the third sitting U.S. president–and the first in 90 years–to win the prestigious peace prize. His predecessors won during their second White House terms, however, and after significant achievements in their diplomacy. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the price in 1919, after helping to found the League of Nations and shaping the Treatise of Versailles; and Theodore Roosevelt was the recipient in 1906 for his work to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese war.
In contrast, Obama is struggling over whether to expand the war in Afghanistan, preparing to withdraw from Iraq, and searching for ways to build momentum to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and assemble an international effort to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
The committee’s choice of Obama from among 205 nominees appears in part to be a continued rebuke to the Bush administration’s go-it-alone approach to world bodies and alliances, including its decision to go to war in Iraq without U.N. approval.
UP n,
You did not answer the question, who did more for world peace than Mr. Obama?
You suggest the Nobel panel is political? Spitefully trying to dig at a gone US president? Your critique says more about your political view of Obama than it does of the widely respected panel’s choice. For myself, repudiation of Bush is a step toward peace any old day. I think most of the educated world agrees. Hard core US republicans do not, as it feels like a smack in their face. Therefore, tear down the honor granted to Obama, to build up republicans. The operative word is perverse.
Obama will probably try to send in fewer than the requested 40,000 troops, based on a recast strategy that says, essentially, “okay, this is really not a fight against the Taliban; let’s cut them some slack and focus on Bin Laden and his gang”.
Joe
Hear hear!
Whether Obama deserves it or not is not the issue. The issue is ‘His hands are already tied if he accepts it’. No more troop buildup in Afghanistan. No more air strikes either. What about Iran and North Korea? The leaders of those 2 countries will have a field day.
there you go, supremo. I think you hit one of the issues right on its head. One of USA’s strength always has been its willingness to go unilateral, contrary to the underlying philosophical undertones of the Nobel committee. The Nobel Peace Prize now also weakens (this is my opinion…) weakens Obama among segments of the USA political mish-mash (and I do not mean fringe segments, either), and if there is anything the USA needs, it is a strong president who can lead all of the citizens of USA.
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Just like the Dutch or the Danes… willing to send troops (fighting troops, not drive-people-around troops) into Iraq and Afghanistan, contrary to the wishes of the peace-movement of Europe.
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And JoeAm… exemplary individuals would be the number-2 or the number-3 being evaluated by the Nobel committee.
Obama has a job to do, and it is not to feather his retirement funds with the million-dollar-some reward that the Nobel prize gives. Obama has to lead USA. The Peace Prize now undercuts (in my opinion) Obama’s ability to lead USA citizens.
Some of the names nominated to the 2009 Peace Prize are:
– Cluster Munitions Coalition, nominated for its central role in getting nearly 100 countries to sign a treaty last year in Oslo banning cluster bombs;
- Sarkozy, president of France;
- former French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt
- Chinese dissident Hu Jia. [Nothing political about Hu Jia, who was considered a front-runner for the 2008 prize. His nomination now risks angering Beijing, which reacts vehemently each time a Chinese dissident is mentioned as a candidate.]
- Evo Morales.
Other nominees include Piedad Córdoba, the Colombian senator who has been eagerly advocating a peace process in her country, and has played an instrumental role in the release of hostages. Another strong candidate is the Jordanian Prince, Ghazi bin Muhammad, who as an Islamic scholar plays a key role promoting interfaith dialogue. A third nominee is Sima Samar, the Afghan woman at the helm of her country’s human rights commission, serves as the UN special envoy to Darfur, and who has a long background in human rights and humanitarian assistance.
————–
The winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, in the personal opinion of a directior of the International Peace Research Institute, would be from above 3 names.
Not really being knowledgeable about who and which groups are commendable regarding international peace, I wasn’t asked to vote. But had they done so, I would vote for Cluster Munitions Committee. Now, that group can really use the million-dollar prize.
supremo,
President Obama’s hands are not tied if he accepts the award. He is practical and will keep on working.
UP n,
Those are superb nominees, but I fear your condemnation of the Nobel prize selection as “political” smears every award the panel has ever granted. Your condemnation of the Obama award reflects a small view of what it means to take the US and Russia down from the brink of another cold war, or to find a way to bring Iran and North Korea down from their adventures with no more wars, by engaging Russia and China on the task. If there are no wars, one does not have to worry about cluster bombs.
No, your continuing objection is strictly political, and you are now in the gahi ulo mode of Filipino defensiveness. You are one of the patriots who would rather see Obama and the US fail than commend a man for work well done. You backed Bush through his international and domestic failures, and you are in attack mode . . .
What kind of person, upon hearing that his neighbor has just won a distinguished award, would start to tear down the award process?
What kind of patriot, upon hearing that his president has just received the highest human award available on the planet, would take the opportunity to condemn the award committee?
A very political, not very gracious one . . . you, I fear, have gone the bencard route of winning over dignity . . .
Joe
UP n,
And my guess is Mr. Obama will donate the money to a useful cause. It isn’t about money. It is about honor and respect and appreciation.
Joe
I think I sense where you are coming from. And for me, I have to keep reminding myself that Obama was never aiming for the Peace Prize from any organization, just to be a good president for USA. This is not his fault.
I still repeat what I said — I believe that it does not do the USA any favors that Pres. Obama had been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.
Columnists from the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post and others are reacting to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. A few other columnists echo this cut-and-paste from a commentary by Ruth Marcus of Washington Post:
===============
I do congratulate Obama for having received such award. My personal hope is that his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is followed by more European countries sending soldiers and money into Afghanistan.
UP n,
If you go around clipping quotes only from the people who agree with you, you are merely talking to yourself. You can also find quotes from distinguished republicans who say, simply: “Congratulations, Mr. Obama.”
It has shocked me to learn that there are dignified Republicans in todays spiteful, spitful partisan times.
You know, it is an honor to all Americans that their president has been so honored.
Joe
If you are shocked by Republicans positively reacting to the Nobel committee awarding the award to Obama, then you will equally be shocked by the Washington Post’s reaction to the same action by Nobel committee. “Not to Obama”, the Post says, “but to the Iranian democracy movement”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100903860.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
UP n,
Not shocked. Good minds are free to roam. Neda would have been a profound award, indeed.
I would note, the award is not a competition like Pinoy Big Brother. Neda is not competing with Obama. There are no winners and losers.
Joe
UP n,
Fine bedfellows department:
Those condemning President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award: Taliban, Hamas, Hugo Chavez, Republican National Committee.
It can be presumed that all would cheer with glee if Mr. Obama, honorably elected President of the United States by the People of the United States, were to fail.
Or put another way, when you have destruction-minded conservative Republicans, who needs enemies? They are America’s home-grown Taliban-style intolerant thinkers who believe they are the only true patriots, daily perverting the principles of America’s founding fathers and working without conscience to undermine duly elected leaders.
Joe
While I go yearly to New Orleans, Louisina, U.S.A. for the “Mardi
Gras” festival. Honestly, I had never ventured to the “Borboun Street” festival. Not that I am a prude. It does not make sense to me. If someone flashes her breasts. I had other things to enjoy like listening to Jazz music, where it originated.
We should learn from the Dutch people. They had learned to cope and live with floods. I think, the Flood Control Project failed in its design stage. They did not look for the best and the fittest of the Flood Control Designs. The Squatter/ Fishpens problems aggravated the condition. However, the Public Officials involved are just incompetent. Or just looked the other way on the problem. Nobody sounded the alarm. Until we were all flooded.
Again, it is not the cost that matter in a design. It is the design
that will work that matter. Costliest does not mean, it is the fittest. Designs are like your clothes. It is the one that fit you that you buy. We lack experienced people who have good knowledge in Flood Control and Water Management Technology.
The study should be offered in Universities like UP. We are a perenially flooded country. We can have a tandem study with Universities from the Netherlands. Share informations. Share technologies. Sounds Good?
Constructing the Paranaque spillway or channel will complete the flood control system designed during the Marcos administration. Then flood control dams in all streams that leads to the Marikina River. Philippine based civil engineers can certainly design that. The residents of MM can invest in sandbags or small aquadams while for the upgraded flood control infrastructure to kick in.
Hyden: blackshama has posted several times that there are scholarships available (money from Japan and other countries) but Pinoy college students are not interested in the courses (blackshama suspects Pinoys are afraid when math is required).
And then, what also happens is the trained, after a few years, follow Rogelia PePua or Prof Doracie Zoleta-Nantes who have moved to Australia.
Brain drain is the cause also…
President Obama has this eloquent reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize :
I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee.
Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize, men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.
And I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.
Read more….
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/us/politics/09obama-text.html
The Peace Prize for President Barack Obama is Europe’s revenge on George W. Bush.
The prize was surely more anti-Bush than pro-Obama. Or if you want to add another dialectical twist: It was a prize by which the good folks of Europe, as represented by Norway, rewarded themselves for having transcended Mr. Bush’s Yahoo America — this retrograde warrior culture, this arrogant colossus trampling around the world in a self-granted mission to remake it in America’s image.
Mr. Obama, by contrast, is vaguely “un-American”: soft of language, soft of power, an American social democrat out to make his country more “European” — always ready to reach out to those who do not reach out to the West, nor wish it well. This is how the Europeans, once a race of conquerors and colonizers, like to see themselves: peaceable, cooperative, high-minded — that is, in a more advanced stage of development than Bushist America.
Tranquil,
I think you accurately portray European sensitivities and sensibilities, and I agree that Barak Obama is clearly a better match than George Bush to that style. Listening to the comments of Nobel committee members, I am inclined to think that the motivation was not negative, as you suggest, intended to slap Mr. Bush, but positive, intended to inspire more of the same of what they saw from Mr. Obama early on, his promise to end the Iraq engagement, his promise to try to re-energize the Palestine-Israel dialogue, his promise to work with other countries rather than go it alone, and the intellectual dignity he projects, which is clearly European in style. Then they saw his real-world decisions like shutting down the torture machine, cutting the tension with Cuba, ending the poorly conceived missile program that was a burr in the saddle of Russia . . . and they said, “Yes, this is what we need!”
To suggest the Nobel people would be inclined to act like catty gossips slapping down someone they find distasteful is a little too much soap opera projection. I share the dislike for George W. Bush’s style, but he is gone already. No need to worry about him.
They have done their best to inspire an inspiring man, so, all in all, commendable work.
Joe
But JoeAm: now you would understand why those who had looked to the Nobel prize as being given for accomplishments achieved would be disappointment to see the Nobel committee giving the award “to inspire an inspiring man”.
Nonetheless, the award is “their award”, the prize is “their prize”, so he who has the gold rules and of course the Nobel committee have done this before.
UP n,
Not really. I see tremendous accomplishment from Mr.Obama. Canceling the missile shield program was a tangible, peace-oriented step. His accomplishments have not included a “win” in Iraq, which is your main measure. Peace can be achieved by ways other than wins on the battlefield.
I further note that, in looking at the criticisms, one must consider the bias of the source. The Nobel committee awarded the prize to Arafat a few years back, for the same reason, to try to impel peace. Jews to this day sputter and fume about it.
Joe
Everyone wants to a win a prize whether for us individually or as a country, but when a prize giver becomes this arrogant and meddlesome with regard to another citizen of the awardee’s country, an official that had been duly elected to represent the entire country at that, then what does it say about the committee and the country that dispense that award?
And this news item comes from a non-US source.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1409982/Nobel-prize-for-Carter-is-kick-in-leg-for-Bush.html
“It is clear that with the position that Carter has adopted in the question of Iraq, [it] must be seen as a criticism of the policy that the current US administration has adopted in relation to Iraq,” said Gunnar Berge, the Norwegian committee chairman.
When asked if the award to Mr Carter, 78, was a “kick in the leg” for Mr Bush, Mr Berge replied: “Yes, the answer is an unconditional yes.”
A “kick in the leg” is the Norwegian equivalent of a “slap in the face”.
And this pattern of a crassly political agenda had been on display in other years’ awards. I say this greatly diminishes the importance and honor associated with the award. And given the context ought to make each such awardee uncomfortable with it.
BTW, Norwegians themselves overhwhelmingly find the award to Obama not correct:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/10/024676.php
Amadeo,
I tend to think your perspective is political, too. So who do I trust has the best perspective on Mr. Obama’s accomplishments or intent, you or the Nobel committee?
Do you think the Nobel committee has bad motives in it’s thinking? Or good?
If it is bad, you can rightfully condemn the committee. Otherwise, maybe a good shrug is in order. You can’t win them all.
Those being critical of the award need to tread a careful line between respect and disrespect, or risk being no different than the Taliban, Hamas, or Hugo Chavez, all of whom have condemned the award. The Republican National Committee’s leverage of the issue to raise money from conservative elements of the party crosses the line. It is outrageously deconstructive –truly surreal — suggesting there is some “leftist” agenda internationally aimed at controlling the world, and claiming that the only true patriots are Republicans, or those who contribute money for the cause.
So, being registered as a democrat, and being generally a free thinker, and in no way contributing cash to the Steele coffer, I guess I can toss my Viet Nam medals as irrelevant, eh? Maybe I’ll pull a John Kerry and toss them into the China Sea.
The election of Obama was in part a rejection of intolerance (torture and spying on citizens), but conservative republicans do not respect the vote. They want everyone in their little box, and they have become angry and spiteful about things. I don’t know why they can’t honor the choice of the American people. That’s ordinarily the way it is done.
It all seems rather smallish to me . . .
Joe
To portray the Dutch society as being kumbaya-united is to portray as much more pathetic the divisiveness in Pinas population. Cracks in the unity of the Dutch society is there — an example will be the anger and antagonism against the Islamic militants of Holland. Just remember that only months ago was the huge uproar over the Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders and the Dutch Freedom Party. Geert Wilders made the film linking Islamic texts with the terror attacks on New York. The film Fitna, which criticizes the Koran as a “fascist book”, sparked violent protests around the Muslim world last year.
UP n,
Yes, any wide open free thinking society is oil against the water of fundamentalist religious thought.
Joe
It is the Islamic Fundamentalists that are causing trouble. They encourage suicide bombers, jihads, and
covered women on “burkas”. With only their eyeballs
peeping thru their clothes. They believe they have
the true faith. Everybody else are “infidels” or non
believers. It is a doctine and a dogma that came out
when people were still riding on donkeys. Which some of those Muslim countries do. Except for the
oil that they have. They have no other good products or
systems to contribute to the human race, except terrorrism.
Let me ‘transport’ the following notes, to wit:
Water control and land reclamation:
More than 25% of the area of the Netherlands is below sea level, so an effective system of water control is needed to keep the land dry and habitable for the many people 60% of the population that live in these low lying areas. Sea water can, however, flood the land via estuaries and inlets and as a result of infiltration, and an excess of melt and rainwater in Central Europe can cause the great rivers to burst their banks. Modern pumping stations work day and night to drain off excess water.
The Zuyder Zee Project:
The most renowned example of land reclamation was the closure of the Zuyder Zee in the thirties, which entailed the construction of the 30 kilometer long Afsluitdijk (Closure-Dike) connecting the provinces of Friesland and North Holland. The dam transformed the Zuyder Zee into an inland sea, which gradually became a freshwater lake (the IJsselmeer). Four enormous polders were drained in the IJsselmeer, with a gain of 165,000 hectares of new land. The two oldest the Wieringermeer Polder and the North East Polder are used for agriculture. The newest, Southern Flevoland, is mainly used for housing, employment and recreation to alleviate some of the congestion in the Randstad conurbation. Eastern Flevoland combines all three functions, being used for agriculture, housing and employment. This polder contains Lelystad, the provincial capital of Flevoland.
The Delta Project:
The last occasion that the sea launched a fierce attack on the land was on 1 February 1953, when a combination of spring floods and heavy storms put large areas in the south-western part of the country under water. This disaster, which cost hundreds of lives, underlined the urgency of completing the Delta Project, the plan to construct a network of barriers closing off the estuaries in the south west. All the estuaries have now been closed, with the exception of the New Waterway and the Western Scheldt, which remain open to allow shipping access to the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp (in Belgium).
The Eastern Scheldt basin has been closed off by means of a storm surge barrier which is over 3,200 meters long, and is made up of piers between which steel gates are suspended. Under normal conditions the gates remain open and permit the sea to flow in and out of the Eastern Scheldt; in stormy weather they are lowered to protect the estuary from high water levels. This method of closure was chosen to conserve the shellfish in the Eastern Scheldt which depend on tidal movement to survive. On 4 October 1986, Queen Beatrix officially opened the storm surge barrier in the Eastern Scheldt, marking the official completion of the Delta Project. The inland lakes which have been created will safeguard arable land from further becoming brackish. They will also be used for recreation purposes.
The Philippines, unfortunately, never had a government in its entire infantile history that could parallel the Dutch, just no one.
Our leaders’ highest level of awareness is not on the environment. Rather, it is on how to siphon off more money from the mud that was the Ondoy and Pepeng. HOW IMMORAL FOR A GOVERNMENT?