Laakdal creates space for nature experience

In the Antwerp Kempen, Laakdal mayor Tine Gielis is already looking forward to once again living up to the name of her municipality.

_{Text Elise Noyez | Image Municipality of Laakdal}

Tine Gielis has been at the helm of the municipal government in Laakdal since 2007. A fourteen-year term in which she not only saw the obligatory management of weeds and roadsides change, but above all saw renewed attention to the natural, agricultural and recreational value of some crucial landscape elements on her territory. "As mayor, my job is to seek balance between the various partners that define our landscape. These elements now transcend the boundaries of our municipality, and it makes no sense to have separate policies for each."

Water

Laakdal owes its name to the Great Laak. Over a distance of some thirty kilometers, the tributary of the Grote Nete meanders through the municipality's landscape. "In the first half of the twentieth century, people still regularly swam here," says Gielis, "but since then the river has become one of the most polluted watercourses in Flanders. In 2017, the Flemish Environment Agency therefore worked out a roadmap in collaboration with the business community. Those commitments led to the Winterbeek already being remediated, and in the coming years the Grote Laak is on the agenda."

Meanwhile, the city council itself will be looking for initiatives to revitalize nature experiences around the river. "In the first place, we are going to establish hiking trails, but we also dare to think further. In cooperation with private partners, we also want to enable recreation on, around and in the water."

Equally important is the maintenance of the various watercourses. "It is a shared responsibility, for which we are strongly committed to the balance between agriculture, nature and governance. To this end, we have established a charter between agriculture on the one hand and the province on the other."

Wood

As one of the nine municipalities with a stake in Landscape Park de Merode, once an important site for timber extraction, Laakdal is also profiling itself more and more explicitly as a timber town. "A clog museum and clog experience trail are reminders of our clogging industry, and the protected Beyens sawmill has been completely restored in recent years. Meanwhile, it houses a rental service for bicycles and eTuktuks, with which visitors can discover the landscape in an original way. In the near future, we are also building an arboretum, with above all an educational function."

Landscape Park de Merode, which until 2004 was owned by the family of the same name and consequently inaccessible, will be opened to the public. "This is always done in consultation with the nine municipalities involved, the three provinces, Natuurpunt, the Boerenbond and Kempens Landschap. Through the 'charter de Merode' we all committed ourselves in 2006 to safeguard the unity of the area. We ensure that the junction routes lead through the entire landscape park and jointly call on the so-called route doctors for maintenance."

Slow roads

Yet Gielis does not see nature experience as exclusively a matter for large landscape attraction poles. "In the various cores, too, we put our efforts into experience. Around the new town hall, for example, our green services set up a green events plaza, where planting and colors alternate throughout the year; each borough will have a play forest; and where possible, we provide new developments with avenues and lanes. In addition, we have a huge network of slow roads. These have been inventoried, and together with the non-profit organization Slow Roads we are now making every effort to maintain and optimize them. In this way, citizens will use them more and more."