Project LEVENDE HAVEN – Netherlands (ongoing)
SEVERAL PARTIES RALLY TOGETHER TO PRESERVE BIODIVERSITY!
This project named Levende Haven, Alive harbor in Dutch, is supported by three entities: Noordzeevis vit Scheveningen (the foundation of the North Sea fish), Maris College, and Ecocean. This project was financed through participatory funding from Scheveningen, the popular harbor district of The Hague, in South Holland. For instance, 10 Biohut habitats have been installed in the Scheveningen harbor, and an educational and awareness program for marine biodiversity is being carried out with Maris Middle School’s students. This cross-cutting project, between fishermen, a yacht club, a school, and the restoration of nursery habitat, allows to raise awareness and unite the various actors around their harbor.
This project has both ecological and environmental educational objectives. The Biohut habitats placed in the harbor benefit the species inhabiting Scheveningen, however, they are also the support to various educational activities.
These activities are both conducted with port users and integrated into the 8th-grade curriculum of Maris Middle School. This allows them to understand and consider the ecological mechanisms necessary for juvenile fish, in order to better them in human activities development.
Scientific monitoring are carried out by Ecocean at least once a year. The first two monitoring conducted have allowed us to observe rapid colonization of the habitats, and as expected, a high abundance of juvenile European eel, along with various other species of fish and invertebrates. The eel, an important fish in the Dutch culture and impacted by the lack of habitat and conductivity, is a species targeted by many restoration measures in the Netherlands.
This project has highlighted a real interest of the harbor actors to support its biodiversity since it was chosen by the inhabitants to benefit from participatory financing. It is also the first harbor equipped with Biohut directly in the North Sea, in the Netherlands. This project allows us to acquire valuable data regarding the knowledge of the species inhabiting this ecosystem that benefit from the presence of Biohut.
