Our Coast, Our Sea - Young Rangers swap Northumberland for Netherlands

25 July 2011

Two members of the Young Rangers on the Coast group have just returned from a trip to Netherlands where they took part in an International Camp for Junior Rangers from across Europe.

Laurence Reeves from Dunstan and Michael Kay from Lesbury (both 17) represented the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at the 10th Europarc Junior Ranger Camp at the Weerribben-Wieden National Park in Holland.

Michael and Laurence joined youngsters from 13 Protected Areas and nine different countries at the camp, which was organised by Europarc, an umbrella organisation for Protected Areas across Europe.

During the camp, the participants learned about the Weerribben-Wieden National Park and visited two other Dutch National Parks; Schiermonnikoog, an offshore island and the Drents-Friese Wold National Park. They explored the parks by foot, bicycle and canoe, learning about the habitats and management. There was also the opportunity to talk to other participants about their National Parks and protected landscapes, from Scotland to Serbia and Slovenia.

Laurence Reeves particularly enjoyed the visit to Schiermonnikoog saying “The whole island is a National Park, it reminded me of a larger version of Holy Island here on the Northumberland Coast, except that you get there by ferry. Only residents cars are allowed on the island and we, along with the many other tourists, hired bicycles to explore the island. There were also busses waiting at the dock to take people to the hotels. I think some lessons for the future management of Holy Island could be learned from Schiermonnikoog, especially how to deal with visitors cars and providing for cycling”

Michael Kay said “I particularly enjoyed talking to the other participants about their Protected Areas, even though the areas are all very different; from the high mountains of the Pyrenees and Slovenia to coast of Estonia, one common issue came out as impacting on the beauty of these places and that was litter. We all agreed that as young people, we should try to do something about the increasing amounts of litter in our landscapes”

Iain Robson, Assistant AONB Officer at the Northumberland Coast AONB Partnership, who accompanied the two Young Rangers on their trip said “Our hosts organised an interesting and full programme of activities. Exploring the parks by boat and canoe was a great way to see the wildlife and minimise our impact. We helped the Park Rangers to construct a new board-walked path through the reedbeds which was opened at the end of our camp. It was a great experience for the Young Rangers and they have learned a lot about how other Junior Rangers programmes work. They will have the opportunity to present their finding to our Young Rangers and to the AONB Partnership”.

The Young Rangers thanked the Seahouses Youth project and Northumberland County Council for their support.