Senior adviser on management of natural resources at the Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation. A social geographer from training, with more than twenty years of international experience in the management and maintenance of natural resources, landscape approaches and participatory spatial planning. She worked in Africa, Asia and Latin America for many years, and now works at WUR to develop and disseminate the landscape approach worldwide.
With the ever-increasing claims on land, the importance of ‘poldering’ has also been growing. This is a Dutch concept that means that people solve issues in a certain area through compromises and cooperation. The term originated in the Middle Ages, when farmers, nobles, townspeople and other citizens had to work…