Frans Vera

He has also worked as director of the Stichting Natuurlijke Processen (Natural Processes Foundation), University of Groningen, as a guest staff member at the University of Groningen's Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies (CEES), and as Senior Policy Adviser to the Strategic Policies Division at the Minister's Office in The Hague. He retired in June 2014, but still works as scientist and policy adviser.

Although his theory about large grazers in the original European landscape, and the operation of the Oostvaardersplassen Nature Reserve, remains controversial, he has had great influence. His key work is the 1997 thesis Metaforen voor de Wildernis ("Metaphors for the Wilderness"), of which an adapted English version was published in 2000 entitled Grazing Ecology and Forest History.

On 29 September 1990 Vera received the Gouden Lepelaar ("Golden Spoonbill") award from Vogelbescherming Nederland for his important contribution to the protection of birds, as an expert in the field of nature development, and his close involvement in the conservation and development of the Oostvaardersplassen.

In 1989, Vera moved to the Faculty of Nature Management at Landbouwuniversiteit Wageningen (now Wageningen University & Research (WUR) where he received his PhD in 1997, after completing his thesis Metaforen voor de wildernis. Eik, hazelaar, rund en paart ("Wilderness metaphors. Oak, hazel, cattle and horse"), on the appearance of the vegetation in the lowlands of Central and Western Europe after the end of the last ice age, early in the current Holocene epoch. An adapted version of his thesis was published in 2000 as Grazing Ecology and Forest History.

In 1986, more than 5,700 hectares were brought within the protection of the Nature Conservation Act, an area approximately 10 km long and 6 km wide. Vera proposed the reserve should develop by natural processes, and nature allowed to take its course. Greylag geese had been breeding in the Oostvaardersplassen from 1970 onwards, and moulted in large numbers in the spring (in 1987 more than 30,000 moulting greylag geese were counted), Grazing of these geese in the marshy part, in combination with a dynamic water table, prevented the wetlands from becoming overgrown and therefore conserved many protected bird species.

Vera and others started a new approach to Dutch nature conservation in the 1980s, and the current ecological strategy for the Netherlands is partly derived from his work at Oostvaardersplassen, striving for a varied but especially more "natural" environment, in which certain natural processes are given more space. Together with five colleagues Vera authored the Plan Ooievaar ("Stork Plan"), which proposed restoring natural processes such as flooding the floodplains of big rivers. This plan has been one of the foundations of the Nature Development policy of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV), especially in relation to the development of nature along the great rivers in the Netherlands.

Initially, part of the polder was intended for industrial development, but once the land was reclaimed, the need for land for industry had diminished. An area of thousands of hectares remained uncultivated along the Oostvaardersdijk, and that area quickly developed into a site with great natural wealth and potential. On 6 September 1973, Prof. H.J. van Duin, head of the Scientific Department of the then Rijksdienst voor de IJsselmeerpolders (National Institute for Polders, or R.IJ.P.) suggested in an interview that attention should be paid to the area that was then called “the Knar reserve”. In 1979 Dr. E.P.R. Poorter, biologist at the R.IJ.P., wrote about the Oostvaardersplassen in De Lepelaar ("The Spoonbill"), the journal of the Vogelbescherming Nederland (the Netherlands Society for the Protection of Birds).

From 1970 to 1978 Vera studied biology at the VU University Amsterdam (VU) in Amsterdam. Here he was influenced by Prof. Lambertus Vlijm, animal ecologist. In 1979 he joined the Inspectie Natuurbehoud (Inspectorate for Nature Conservation) of the Staatsbosbeheer, the Dutch state organisation for forestry and management of nature reserves, where he worked on "valuable agricultural cultural landscapes", and later on natural development in large natural areas and areas of water. In 1982 he moved to the Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuurbeheer en Visserij, the then Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries, where he became head of the department for Natural Development and Large Natural Areas. In 1988 he co-authored an Exploratory Study of Natural Development, which presented the concept of the "ecological main structure" (Ecologische Hoofdstructuur, or EHS), which was subsequently incorporated into the Ministry's 1989 Nature Policy Plan.

Vera has played a significant part in the nature conservation project to develop the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve in southern Flevoland, which was reclaimed in 1967.

Dr Frans Vera (born Franciscus Wilhelmus Maria Vera; Amsterdam, 4 June 1949) is a Dutch biologist and conservationist. He has played a key part in devising the current ecological strategy for the Netherlands. He has hypothesised that Western European primeval forests at the end of the Pleistocene epoch did not consist only of "closed-canopy" high-forest conditions, but also included pastures combined with forests, a hypothesis variously addressed as the Vera hypothesis or the wood-pasture hypothesis.

At a young age, Vera was fascinated by books by the Dutch writer, publisher and photographer A.B. Wigman (1891–1972) such as De Hoge Veluwe (1954), and by the Dutch naturalist, cineaste, photographer, journalist and writer Jan P. Strijbos (1891–1983). His teacher at primary school also stimulated his interest in nature. At high school he worked with Paul Opdam (born 1949) to search in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug moraine for the few remaining nests of the goshawk. He came into contact with Maarten Bijleveld, who initiated Operatie Havik ("Operation Goshawk") at that time, and with H.J. Slijper, the falconer and painter.