Frans Vera finally needs to shut up
Does anyone remember the rewilding project in Oostvaardersplassen? It quietly faded into obscurity after it turned into a disasterous PR failure, with multiple mass starvations of red deer causing such a massive public outry in The Netherlands that Vera Frens, creator of the project and the wood-pasture hypothesis, got stripped off his authority [1]. Just as the artificial pasture, Frans Vera also slided into obscurity, despite quite a bunch of people still defending him and blaming the public for "romaticizing nature" – even though there's nothing "natural" about 3000 red deer starving to death during a regular Central European winter that were confined by fences in an area of the size of an airport.
Still, instead of finally admitting that he may have been wrong and accept his defeat, Frans Vera continued to blame the public in a 2025 article for Rewilding Academy, an organization where Vera is part of the "Honorary Committee" [3]. Now he even went a step further and accused anyone that visited the area of intentionally misleading everyone else:
In the Oostvaardersplassen, this is very clear. People take a photo – a static snapshot from a dynamic film – and act as if that single image represents the entire moving picture.
By isolating one image and using it to justify measures, they contradict the processes and traits of the species that drive the “film”. The species are effectively disabled by the picture.
Mind you, this is the same guy who offers ZERO evidence in favor of his hypothesis. But speaking of his hypothesis, he uses it to justify HIS OWN INABILITY TO PLAN HIS PROJECT PROPERLY:
Take, for example, my wood-pasture theory. In the Oostvaardersplassen today, people say, “ we will create a wood-pasture,” but instead of the dynamic mosaic of grasslands, shrubs, thickets, solitary trees, and small woods that spontaneously shifted locations over time under the influence of large grazers, they create a static landscape. They do this by erecting fences that exclude large grazers, planting trees and shrubs that cannot move, keeping grasslands fixed, and heavily culling grazers because, according to the traditional static image of nature, they are considered deadly for shrubs, trees, and thickets. This destroys the very dynamics and role of the large grazers, which are essential to the wood-pasture system.
It was VERA who supported the fences in the first place! HE is the one fully convinced that wood pastures are "the natural state of things" for no other reason than his own upbringing, which must have been in a suburban area with masses carefully-managed lawns and city parks. This guy clearly doesn't even know what a typical factory farm looks like, otherwise he'd have noticed his own false assumptions before he'd artifically turn an area that used to be under water into a pasture like a greedy farmer in 1920.
Ironically, this is where it doesn't end:
I had a particularly intense discussion with the ARK Foundation about the Oostvaardersplassen. They wanted to convert the entire area – 3,600 ha of marsh and 1,880 ha of dry grassland – into a single large marsh because the marsh and its birds were high on the agenda at that time.
I said, “And what about the tens of thousands of greylag geese that gather on the grasslands before moulting in the marsh? These geese play a key ecological role – they manage the marsh for the marsh-dwelling birds.” You cannot simply remove that grassland to create a marsh, because then the geese, as managers, would disappear. I asked if they should then be sent to farmers outside the nature reserve before and after moulting, to which they gave a negative response.
No one would have to do anything because the area is expected to be reclaimed by the North Sea due to rising sea levels as a result of global climate change and the melting of the Artic. At this point, it's fair to assume that Vera is intentionally malicious because how can ANYONE dealing with ecology willfully ignore climate change?!
Ignoring this means you do not understand the system – and this is reflected in discussions today at the Council of State, Provincial Executive, and Staatsbosbeheer regarding the role of large grazers in the Oostvaardersplassen ecosystem. They are treated as a tool to create a static picture rather than an integral part of a dynamic system.
Vera was the same guy AGAINST the introduction of predators such as wolves. In fact, his own hypothesis even EXCLUDES the sheer existence of predators and compares pre-historic Europe to a modern-day savanna in Africa [4]! If anyone doesn't understand anything about "nature", it's Vera. He preaches thinking "systematically" but his own system is based on his limited exposure to flora and fauna during his formative years. He probably also considers the current state of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone wrong and would rather see some form of human management because it doesn't prove his hypothesis like he wants it to.
My path towards nature management actually began at secondary school, where I spent more time looking outside than paying attention in class. One day, a PE teacher asked me what I wanted to be later. I said: a steward – spending all day driving around in a jeep seemed fantastic to me. That’s why I went to the Higher Forestry and Environmental Engineering School in Arnhem, but I didn’t find what I was looking for there. Things took a different turn, but my fascination with nature remained, so I eventually studied biology.
I swear, I didn't read this section before I wrote the previous paragraph. Vera himself admits that he romanticized nature just because he was bored at school. He never grew up on a farm or close to various wild animals; he merely watched birds near his classroom window whilst not paying attention in biology class.
During my studies, I had very little money; I even cancelled my membership of the Dutch Bird Protection Society, only rejoining after graduating.
WHAT THE FUCK.
Literally everyone would assume that someone's unable to afford food or clothes when claiming to have "very little money". Cancelling a voluntary membership at some birdwatching organization doesn't make you "low on money" but privileged. Sit the fuck down.
There's no point in quoting the rest of this article because Vera only taks about himself and what a "success" his failed project is. It's all about Vera himself, his "role in the world", the stuff that only some entitled and narcissistic guy can come up with. He rejects any flaws in his logic, claims everyone who doesn't agree with him to be the dumb one, and obviously does not demonstrate any extensive knowledge regarding animal behavior and any ecosystem except for urban parks. He's like Jordan Peterson who compared humans to lobsters.
To get back to Oostvaardersplassen: Would Vera also claim that it's "natural" and demand no one to intervene when people starve in war-torn regions such as Gaza? Shall we abolish diplomacy and any kind of compassion just because "nature is harsh", even though other wild mammals and birds have been documented to show compassion similar to humans [5]? Is it really "natural" to keep thousands of red deer stuck in a small area and effectively treat them like neglected livestock, just so some guy can sell his face for some books and interviews and stroke his own ego?
As long as Frans Vera refuses to admit any fault and just repeatedly blames everyone else for his own incompetence, he needs to shut up.
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[1]
"Rewilding Gone Wrong?" (SCOTLAND – The Big Picture)
[2]
[3]
[4]
"Wood-pasture hypothesis" (Wikipedia)
[5]
/gemlog/