With ALPA, we get a second chance
The greatest work of all time lays right in front of our feet. For the taking. Do we dare to look? Do we bend down? Do we pick it up?
How much extra playing time do we get? How many extensions can we drag out? Does it turn into panic kicks on a burning goal, or can we still turn the tide with revamped tactics?
Most climate models suggest that not much time remains. Many even show that actually “two-for-twelve” is already well past. Is that a reason to do nothing more, reef the sails, look away and jump overboard if necessary? Or do we tighten the jib, watch out for the boom, brace ourselves on deck and roll up our sleeves higher? How do we use this extra time we apparently have left? Leave the head hanging, or raised in the neck? The most important challenge of all time lies beckoning to us. Can we really try again? Yes, we can, and ALPA offers us that opportunity!
If we had known 80 years ago that more than 70% of all insects in the Netherlands would disappear in a few decades because of our actions, that more than 70% of the meadow birds would also disappear and that soil life would be degraded to a bucket of lifeless sandbox sand, and that the related balance in ecosystems would be disturbed to such an extent that all life on earth would be threatened to extinction, if we had known this beforehand, would we have made the same choices back then?
Would we still have opted for an agricultural policy where there is no escape from ever-increasing scale and intensification, where no sprout or packet of yoghourt can be produced without a bucket of fertiliser, a bag of poison and a wheelbarrow of subsidy, where the economic value of land always takes precedence over the ecological value?
If we were given a retake, would we make different choices? Does that possibility actually exist, on such a retake? Yes and no. Biodiversity is greatly threatened. Species that are extinct are not coming back. That is a fact. Dead is dead. Bad luck, they are gone. However, species that have greatly diminished in numbers may recover. That is also a fact and a windfall. Nor has biodiversity declined as severely everywhere as it has in our hyper-productive earning country. Not so far away from our rigid monotonous bulb fields, the exuberant richness of life still exists, the meadows are still full of wildflowers and herbs, the insects still buzz deafeningly on bright summer days, birds and mammals still have access to everything they are entitled to, and people can live well integrated with all this life healthy and meaningful. Making mistakes is allowed, and even seems to be human. Of course it is nice if we learn from them, so we do not have to fall in the same hole twice.
According to many scientists, we are getting awfully close to the ecological tipping point, the moment at which there is no turning back, at which the remaining life on earth can no longer be saved, at which anthropogenic climate destabilisation will derail for good. Whether you believe in it or not may not even matter that much. With sober Dutch common sense, taking the safest path just doesn’t seem very out of place in this case.
How? Here’s the offer; we get a second chance! Me too. Also you. We, you, me, can show that we have learned from our mistakes. We may still be able to turn the tide, to reverse the tipping point. ALPA offers us an outstanding tool for this.
How do we do it? Very simple: ALPA is an organisation that acquires farmland and sees it as common property of the whole earth. No private ownership. No revenue model. No financially short-sighted impoverishment of the whole. The land in the foundation is farmed by agroecological farmers (these are farmers who work with rather than against nature on a human scale) and is used for the benefit of biodiversity resilience, resulting in healthier and richer lives for all.
ALPA operates in the middle of the “lungs of Europe,” the heart of Transylvania, in a region the size of the province of Utrecht, which the late Ivo Valkenburg named “The Golden Circle”. The uniqueness of this area is that it is (still!!!) home to one of the richest biodiversities in Europe, there is (still!!!) a lot of small-scale nature-inclusive agriculture and the soil, air and water quality are (still!!!) exceptionally high.
ALPA is part of a movement to regenerate bio-regionally, socially, ecologically and economically and sets an example of how things can be done differently, locally, regionally and, of course, globally.
In the Golden Circle, in many ways, it is still 80 years ago. Here now, anno 2023, we can make different and new choices. Here, all that life can still be preserved. That life that contributes to maintaining the biological balance that is so essential to avoid that globally imminent tipping point. The Transylvanian dung beetle may well be much more important to life on the Utrechtse Heuvelrug than we ever imagined.
Will you join us? ALPA is happy to convert your hand (or wheelbarrows) of euros into plots of common land rich in biodiversity, with an eye on tomorrow’s life for everyone and everywhere!
By Lars Veraart
