The Dutch House of Representatives has asked the Council to indicate on the basis of a maximally complete overview of tourism and recreation in and around the Wadden Sea where the economic opportunities for this sector are found, and what their economic effects will be. The developmental opportunities could consist of an increase or reduction in the size and economic significance of the recreation sector and of making it more sustainable. In view of the relationship between this and the objectives of the Wadden Sea Fund, it has been decided also to send this advice, unsolicited, to the Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment.

The advice is based on the meeting of policy objectives for the Wadden Sea and the Wadden Sea area as laid down in the Key Planning Decision Third Wadden Sea Memorandum (Derde Nota Waddenzee).

The advice is based on the study into the current significance and developmental opportunities of the recreation sector in the Wadden Sea Area implemented by the Council in partnership with Groningen University. That study involved collecting the available economic data and analysing it on the basis of interviews and surveys among the entrepreneurs and charting the threats and opportunities identified or experienced by the recreation sector itself.

The set policy objectives for the area are translated in the advice into a target situation for recreation and tourism for 2025. That has clarified - in outline form - how the developments wanted by the sector relate to the direction the government believes the development should take (policy objectives).

Economic research
The research shows that the traditional visitor to the Wadden Sea islands and the Wadden Sea is mainly looking for qualities such as peace, space, nature and landscape. In the much less developed (in terms of tourism) coastal area of the mainland, visits based on cultural-historical motives form an important addition to the landscape and space.
The Wadden Sea area has a large group of loyal visitors who visit the region more than once, which does not otherwise alter the fact that today's tourist has different wishes and requirements from those of some time ago.
The research also shows that the Wadden Sea region has not succeeded in keeping pace with the national economy in terms of the recent growth in jobs. With growth of 11.8% (compared to the national average of 19.4%), the islands have done relatively well in relation to the mainland coast at 4.5%.

Islands
The Wadden Sea islands are a popular holiday destination. More than half of all Dutch nationals have visited an island at least once, in many cases during a family holiday. It is still the case that most visitors arrive for a long holiday. None the less, the average length of holiday is being reduced owing to a growing number of short holidays outside of the (virtually) fully booked peak season.

Recreation and tourism forms the islands' principal economic sector. With percentages from over 22% to almost 50% of the people working in the catering sector, the islands stand head and shoulders above the coastal municipalities. With percentages between 30% and 60%, the share of jobs in the recreation sector is even greater. Of all the islands, Schiermonnikoog has the biggest share of catering and leisure jobs; Texel the lowest. Other than the recreation sector, Schiermonnikoog does not have any economic activities of any magnitude. The islands have a rich supply of facilities, activities, nature conservation areas and culturally attractive locations. The utilisation level of the bed capacity is high in peak season.

Mainland coastal area
The economic significance of recreation and tourism in the mainland coastal region is modest as compared with the islands. Employment in the leisure sector is much lower than on the islands, in both absolute and percentage terms. The recreation sector in the mainland coastal area is however undergoing above average growth compared to other sectors. The coastal municipalities with the biggest catering sector share are Wieringen in Noord-Holland, Wûnseradiel in Fryslân and De Marne and Reiderland in Groningen.

Wadden Sea
The annual number of recreational sailing movements in the Wadden Sea has doubled in the past 25 years to 126,000 lock passages. The majority of these are accounted for by sailing vessels. There is also a shift towards more luxurious, larger yachts, which mainly sail from harbour to harbour in the large channels in the western part of the Wadden Sea.  Another category is formed by the flat-bottomed wadvaarder vessels and other boats with smaller draughts, and canoeists, who are more likely to use the peaceful but vulnerable east-westerly channels. They frequently sail outside of the buoys and settle on the mud flats at low tide. A third category covers the almost 400 vessels of the charter fleet (the 'bruine vloot'), which make sailing trips with groups of holiday-makers, and also regularly settle on the mud flats.

Another distinctive form of recreational use that remains stable in terms of scope is what is known as 'wadlopen', or walking on the mud flats at low tide, which is mainly done in the eastern part of the Wadden Sea. 

Result of interviews and surveys among recreation entrepreneurs
A notable result of the survey is the clear choice of recreation entrepreneurs to retain and strengthen the identity of the Wadden Sea area. Within that choice the preference (on the islands) is for continued growth in the number of visitors with the aim of keeping a 'Wadden Sea holiday' accessible to all.

The most important general trends that offer opportunities for recreation and tourism in the Wadden Sea area are the increasing ageing population and ongoing rise in prosperity and the increasing demand for short, well-organised holidays and the growing demand for sustainable (eco) tourism.

In view of the trends and the desired policy developments, there are a number of strategic choices that need to be made. The issues to which this applies are set out for each area in the form of future dilemmas.

Islands
Dilemma 1: can the autonomous trend towards fewer but more well-off people be combined or reconciled with the wish for permanent or even increasing accessibility for many people? 
The recreation entrepreneurs work towards the biggest possible target group, but also make the economic decision to cater to the demand for more luxurious (in this case more space-consuming) accommodation. Combined with a surface area that remains about the same, this will result in higher prices per overnight stay.

Dilemma 2: can the growth in the number of visitors be combined with retaining the island feeling?
If the increase in the number of visitors is to be found mainly in growth in day tourism and improving the accessibility of the islands this will call for, this might take place at the expense of the 'island feeling'. The extent to which the island feeling is a determining identifying feature for island visitors is not entirely clear; the information available shows that some of the visitors feel called to the islands in part by that feeling, whereas others regard the limited accessibility as an adverse feature.

Dilemma 3: can the growth in the number of visitors be brought about by sustainably improving accessibility?
Intensifying the connections between the islands and the coastal mainland region is likely to increase the environmental burden. The challenge is to ascertain how this increase can be limited or compensated for by putting additional measures or facilities (e.g. the use of biofuels) in place.

Mainland coast
Dilemma 1: does plentiful space also mean space for recreation and tourism?
Economic activity plays a modest role in the coastal mainland region, also regarding the region's recreational potential. That could have something to do with the relatively large physical distance between the various elements that are of interest to tourists and/or their accessibility (ability to find them). The attractiveness of the coastal mainland region is found in aspects such as the open space, the scenic characteristics that reflect the region's origins, and in the (cultural) historical value of using and living in the region. The challenge is to bring about developments in the coastal mainland region that add tourism-recreation facilities whilst retaining the region's spatial quality and identity.

Dilemma 2: how can the recreation sector grow without 'strong branding'?
Other than the landscape, which does of course have an overall presence, the infrastructure is short on places of interest and is aimed primarily at small-scale tourism. Recreational accommodation facilities are thin on the ground and are also generally small-scale. New developments such as Esonstad show that there are indeed possibilities for (more large-scale) recreational developments, and the seal sanctuary at Pieterburen has demonstrated for many years that there can be a place for large-scale day-trip attractions, too. The economic research mentions a lack of cooperation as the reason (or one of the reasons) for the lack of development. This could however be a chicken or egg scenario: initiatives fail to get off the ground because there is too much uncertainty about the number of tourists attracted and, conversely, tourists stay away because the supply of tourism-recreation is not up to the mark owing to the area's bleak and windswept image.

Wadden Sea
Dilemma 1: how can everyone enjoy the qualities of the Wadden Sea?
The various forms of recreation in the Wadden Sea are generally regulated by law or in the form of agreements. That is certainly the case regarding activities such as walking on and allowing vessels to settle on the mud flats and chartered shipping. The mooring standard for yacht marinas was dropped when the Key Planning Decision Third Wadden Sea Memorandum came into effect. The relevant public authorities entered into a Water Sport Recreation Agreement (Convenant Vaarrecreatie), which is intended to put in place an integral, quality-based policy. The key points involve improving the monitoring, improving the information supply, providing training courses and developing reservation and information systems and hotlines for reporting faults.   

Dilemma 2: safety and sufficient capacity in yacht marinas
Water sport recreation is subdivided into a number of groups, each of which has its own wishes and requirements concerning tourism-recreation facilities and - accordingly - has varying degrees of dependence on recreation entrepreneurs. The group least dependent on facilities is the group that sails individually with a flat-bottomed boat or boat with a raising keel and settles on the mud flats at low tide. Pleasure sailors with a sharp keel yacht are generally less independent, and prefer to spend the nights at a yacht marina.
Finally, in chartered shipping recreation entrepreneurs play an important role in the supply of charters. There are clear differences in the wishes and requirements regarding quality and facilities both within and between these groups of recreational Wadden Sea users.

The challenge in the agreement is to find the right balance between the supply and demand for moorings within economically and ecologically acceptable constraints.

Identity of the Wadden Sea area
The Wadden Sea area is a physical region that extends along the southeast coasts of the North Sea, around the edges of the Northwest European mainland. Around the shallow coastal sea of the same name a Wadden landscape has come about which stands out from its surroundings for its specific association with forms of both a physical and a social-cultural nature.

The Wadden Sea has formed the bordering clay area. Up until around 1500 there was a situation where the land and sea went up and down. Land gain took place in the period prior to the building of the dikes and the cultivation of the inland peat fringe (until roughly 800). That gain was possible because up until that time the peat colonies had been left virtually untouched and the sea still held free reign over the dike-free salt marshes.  On the other hand, land loss and major flooding took place between 800 and 1500. It was during this period that the inhabitants of the Wadden Sea region began to build dikes and drainage systems. The building of dikes literally and figuratively shut out the Wadden Sea. In Groningen, but especially in Friesland and Oost-Friesland, the link between land and sea increasingly weakened. The sea came increasingly to be regarded as a problem and a threat.
Strong links with the sea did however remain in the coastal zones where shipping and fishery remained important, such as the Frisian Zuiderzee towns, Harlingen, Wierum, Zoutkamp, Delfzijl, Emden, Tönning, etc. The living environment of the islanders had already been characterised for centuries by a field of tension between the external (deep-sea trade, whaling, herring fishing) and the internal (agriculture, beachcombing, coastal fishing) dynamics.

In the New, Early Modern Era (1500-1850), when the inhabitants of the Wadden Sea area were prospering, its natural beauty was weighed up against the outstanding suitability for human usage.
As early as in the second half of the eighteenth century there was a turnaround in that image, especially regarding the actual Wadden Sea, and it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that it was rediscovered, particularly on the islands, by a reposing elite.

The clay area (the salt marshes with dikes) with its terps, dikes and sluices, salt marshes and levees, farms, medieval mounds and village churches, creeks, canals and decoys vanished from the picture after 1850 not only economically, but socially and culturally too.

It is clear that the clay area, the salt marshes with dikes, form an integral part of the Wadden Sea area both landscape-genetically and culture-historically and are an example of at least two millennia of ancient interaction between man and his physical environment. The marshland was for centuries the 'theatre of war' between man and nature. The fact that despite that it did not generally become and is not becoming recognised as a cohesive whole certainly has something to do with its decentralised, insular nature.

Changing views about nature and the environment in the nineteen-seventies made it possible to give the Wadden Sea and its natural surroundings special status as a nature conservation area.
Viewed from a cultural-historical perspective, this should also hold true comparatively for the Wadden Sea area, including the clay area. That clay area ultimately forms, both scenically and culturally, part of the Wadden Sea region, a cohesive area consisting of sea, islands and the clay areas.

Measures towards achieving the target situation for 2025
The Council has decided to tailor its recommendations mainly to the measures that could contribute to the creation of attractive future prospects. The measures are as follows:

a. possible swap areas
One of the possibilities for enlarging the scope of recreational accommodation facilities and enhancing the ecological values on the islands is to explore the options for swapping areas. This mainly concerns areas with potentially high ecological values, such as the inner dune fringe region being swapped with Natura 2000 areas with more general ecological values, or areas which in principle offer greater capacity for shared recreational use. The options for this will have to be considered if there is sufficient support among nature conservation organisations, the local population and recreation entrepreneurs.

b. protection of ecological values against the potential impact of extending the season
Potentially adverse effects of extending the season on ecological values must be prevented by making sure that the relevant ecological values are given sufficient protection (e.g. by means of zoning, landscaping measures). Combining this with effective monitoring could produce a clearer image of the capacity of the various areas.

c. development of cultural events and packages
The development of cultural events and packages contributes both to the specific qualities of the Wadden Sea area and to an economic boost, especially regarding activities that are organised outside of peak season. The Council recommends creating space in the policy for the development of periodically recurring (cultural) activities that strengthen the identity of the Wadden Sea area. This is however subject to the condition that these activities are carefully incorporated within the ecological and scenic preconditions from the word go.

d. strengthening of the cooperation between the islands and the coastal mainland region
The solution to the lack of space for the continued growth of recreational accommodation on the islands and the space needed for the growth of day tourism can be found in the coastal mainland region. There are abundant options for the responsible development of the recreation sector in that area. Conversely, this also appears to offer a solution to the most significant obstacle to the continued expansion of the development of recreation and tourism in the coastal mainland region (too few visitors combined with a lack of initiatives in the development of accommodation and attractions). Getting a development of that nature off the ground will call for substantial intensification of the cooperation between the islands and the coastal mainland region. This is only expected to have a chance of success if the public transport connections between the islands and the coast are greatly intensified. That way the government could encourage the use of public transport in the region and also contribute to the image of the Wadden Sea region as an environmentally-friendly setting.

e. development of strong branding for the coastal mainland region
There are opportunities for the development of strong branding in the coastal mainland region. This already exists diffusely in the form of the rich cultural-historical and scenic values of the coastal mainland region. The Council recommends the development of other attractions that will draw many visitors and increase the visibility of the existing qualities. It is important to ensure that the nature and theme of the attractions are in keeping with the identity of the Wadden Sea area. Recreationally attractive themes include the Afsluitdijk, energy, climate change (combined with the elaboration of the Delta Committee report), the transition of fishery, mobility and of course nature. Giving these themes a prominent position throughout the Wadden Sea area could result in considerable pulling power for recreation and tourism. Locations such as Appingedam, Dokkum and Harlingen and the old university city of Franeker, which reflect the former richness and cultural-historical significance of the Wadden Sea area, could also present opportunities.

Making use of World Heritage status
World Heritage status for the conservation area Wadden Sea is expected also to attract recreation and tourism. However, if the region succeeds in making a connection between the value of the nature conservation area Wadden Sea and the World Heritage status-worthy cultural-historical values and the cultural values of the Wadden Sea area as a whole, this status will also create opportunities for the adjacent coastal area. Making and stressing the logical connections between the Wadden Sea and the Wadden Sea area could enable the entire coastal region to benefit from the high profile and image of World Heritage status.

World Heritage Status also lends itself well to promoting the Trilateral Wadden Sea region abroad. It is important in that context that the campaign promotes not only the German or the Dutch Wadden Sea area, but the entire Trilateral Wadden Sea area. Having World Heritage Status make an actual contribution to the further development of the recreation sector in the Wadden Sea region will also involve putting in place the tourism infrastructure, including visitor centres, which are needed for that purpose.

Effects on ecological values
New recreational activities generally form an addition to existing activities and can increase the pressure on an area. There may also be activities that draw tourists to areas that were previously undisturbed. There is only limited knowledge of the impact of recreation and tourism on ecological values, especially when it comes to dose-effect relationships. The advice assumes the principal conclusions published by the National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management (RIKZ) in an overview study on this subject.

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Request for advice
The Dutch House of Representatives has asked the Wadden Sea Council to advise on the options available for the production, reprocessing and use of biofuels in the Wadden Sea region. The Council has extended the request for advice to the options available for biomass in the Wadden Sea Region because biomass can also be used for the extraction of energy (heat and electricity) and as a raw material for the production of materials and in the chemistry sector. It is precisely these applications that could play an important role in the Wadden Sea region.

Specific strengths of the Wadden Sea Region
The Wadden Sea region features a number of specific strengths, such as a strong agricultural cluster, an energy and chemistry cluster in the Emsdelta, nearby knowledge clusters and a sustainable business climate. The Council believes that the alternatives for connecting to these area-specific strengths give the Wadden Sea region a good starting position to make a sustainable contribution to the economic strengthening of the region with biomass applications.

Preconditions for biomass
Sustainable biomass developments must however be based on a responsible approach. The Council takes the view that the identity/character of the region must form an important starting point for future spatial and economic developments in which the core characteristics of the Wadden Sea Region are not adversely affected but sooner supported. To achieve this, the Council recommends having the necessary biomass plants and the building developments placed in line with the existing buildings.
A connection will have to be sought with the farm buildings or industrial sites in the outlying area. Spatial-economic research will be needed to optimise the advantages of synergy created by linking up biomass providers and/or the users of the endproducts.
Large-scale activities depending on large quantities of biomass supplied from elsewhere must be concentrated in the Wadden Sea ports since the open landscape here has already been seriously compromised and the ports can play a facilitating role. The Council advises municipal and provincial authorities to incorporate these spatial conditions for biomass activities in the spatial policy in order to avoid an adverse effect on the Wadden Sea landscape.

The Council regards the Wadden Sea area as being ideally suitable for small-scale biomass cultivation that could function as an experimental garden for the development of knowledge and innovative concepts. The agricultural sector could function as a supplier here with its potential quantity of biomass (remnant stream).

Making optimum use of opportunities
Manure digestion is currently the most frequently occurring production combination with biomass in summary the agricultural sector in the Wadden Sea region.
This application is not however yielding any clear financial-economic benefit at present. The Council believes that a review of the current (subsidy) policy for manure digestion will have to be considered in the light of the future potential and cost effectiveness. The options for more high-value application variants of biomass in the agricultural sector could be looked into more closely. Such research falls outside the scope of the Councils assignment.
The Council also sees opportunities for making better use of the various remnant streams from the rural Wadden Sea area. Decentralised, small-scale biomass remnant stream utilisation could contribute to the creation of local jobs in the Wadden Sea region.

Large-scale biomass activities will have to be clustered in the Emsdelta owing to the presence of deep sea harbours and the possibility of connecting up with the energy and chemistry cluster here. The spatial concentration (clustering) of biomass developments offers the best opportunities for growth, innovation and economic reinforcement, prevents the fragmentation of knowledge and development and also reduces the spatial pressure on the rest of the Wadden sea region.

An intensive partnership with the knowledge clusters present in the area could make it possible to quickly make industrial and commercial use of experimental knowledge and improve the innovative strength of the Wadden Sea region. The Wadden Sea region could thus develop and profile itself as an innovation region for biomass: an experimental garden for new technologies and concepts. Successful pilots and innovations could subsequently be commercially scaled-up and exploited outside of the Wadden Sea region.

Highly qualified personnel will be needed for the continued development and innovation of the high quality biomass technologies. However the percentage of the working population with a higher education is relatively low in the Northern Netherlands.
Specific knowledge development will be required to ensure that the Wadden Sea region can develop into an innovation region for biomass. The Council advises the government to pursue a policy aimed at mitigating the knowledge and education problem in the Northern Netherlands.

Wadden Fund
The Wadden Fund can be regarded as a regionspecific facility that contributes to the good starting position of the Wadden Sea region for the continued development of biomass activities. Innovations and the continued development of biomass technologies can be completed faster with the aid of the Wadden Fund, which makes it possible for the fund to make a positive contribution to the outlined development of the Wadden Sea region as an experimental garden for biomass.

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Why this advice?
Governmental policy has for decades focused on restoring the links between fresh and salt water systems. A number of projects have been carried out in the Wadden region, and there are plans and ideas for various locations at a more or less advanced stage of preparation. It is desirable in the context of water and nature policy to turn those words into actions. The Key Planning Decision 'Third Wadden Sea Memorandum' provides a means to evaluate the various plans not only on their own merits, but also in the light of their significance to the ecological functioning of the Wadden region as a whole. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) has asked the Wadden Sea Council to issue this advice on the fresh-salt water transitions in the Wadden region.

Value of fresh-salt transitions
The presence of fresh-salt transitions in the Wadden region is indispensable to the completeness of the nature reserve and to strengthening the area's ecological values. Restoring the fresh-salt transitions will increase biodiversity and increase the number of characteristic flora and fauna types and habitats. Restoring the fresh-salt transitions will contribute to meeting the targets of Natura 2000 and the Water Framework Directive at all of the designated locations. Meeting the policy targets for the mainland salt marshes and the Wadden islands strongly depends on the restoration of natural processes and dynamics.

Focus on functions
Various types of fresh-salt transitions are found in the Wadden region. There are large-scale dynamic types with open connections to the sea (estuaries, lagoons) and small-scale land based transitions where the fresh-salt gradient in some cases forms only a small element of a large-scale, dynamic system (salt marshes, islands). Each transition type fulfils certain functions with its own value to the Wadden Sea, the hinterland and the transition itself, but not every transition type naturally fulfils all the functions. For that reason it is only possible to restore all types of functions by creating several fresh-salt transitions. The Council recommends to let the 'decision of material importance' of the Key Planning Decision 'Third Wadden Sea Memorandum, stipulating that 'the policy focuses on the optimally natural development of the ecosystem' prevail over the 'decision of material importance', in which is striven ?to realise only one natural fresh-salt transition? for each drainage area, in addition to the existing transitions.For the final choice of potentially suitable locations, it is important to establish which functions can contribute at which locations to the functioning of the Wadden ecosystem. The Council advises basing the restoration task primarily on the functions of the fresh-salt transitions rather than focusing exclusively on the naturalness of the fresh-salt transition. The options for restoring a fresh-salt transition with a high level of naturalness are very limited for the mainland. Because of the drop of the level of the land inside the dikes, it will only be possible to artificially restore the link between the fresh water inside the dikes to the salt outer water. The locations where the restoration of transitions most closely approximates the natural situation are the outer dike areas on the Wadden islands.

Potentials at each location
The decision on restoration measures is based on ecological potentials, physical constraints and feasibility in the social context (including the decision-making process) at the envisaged locations.

Eems-Dollard: The Council advises the Minister to urge the German authorities to make improvements to the lower reaches of the Eems, in combination with improvements in the Dollard by joint effort of the Netherlands and Germany, to improve and restore the ecological functioning of the Eems-Dollard estuary. Since the options and potentials for the Westerwoldse Aa are limited, the Council advises to focus especially on the Eems-Dollard estuary for the restoration of an estuarine transition in the drainage area of the Eems.
Lauwersmeer: The Council considers restoration of an estuarine fresh-salt transition with a permanent brackish water zone in the Lauwersmeer not feasible. The feasible scenarios will at best lead to fresh-salt gradients that function to a limited extend. The inlet of seawater may contribute to the natural value of the region itself, and in particular to meeting the conservation objectives for the Birds Directive area Lauwersmeer. Expectations are that ongoing forest development can be counteracted by periodic inlets of seawater or by higher fresh-water levels over a longer period of time. Possible negative effects of periodic inlet of seawater on the aquatic community needs further investigation. The latter measure leads to mean higher seepage intensity in the surrounding area than the first measure. Further investigation is needed to show the effects of both measures on seepage intensity and to get information about possibly required additional management measures. There are good potentials in the north-eastern part of the Lauwersmeer (Marnewaard) for the creation of a permanent inner dike fresh-salt gradient.
IJsselmeer: The direct link between the IJssel and the Rhine and the size of the IJsselmeer region make this location potentially the most valuable fresh-salt transition in the Wadden region. The planned expansion of drainage capacity, the necessary adaptation of the Afsluitdijk to the safety standards and the opportunity for power generation (Blue Energy) make it possible now to consider measures intended to restore fresh-salt transitions along the Afsluitdijk. The Council advises to work out all of the tasks and challenges in an integral project. The loss of fresh-water stock can be compensated by slightly raising the level. It will be necessary to chart the effect of this on the IJsselmeer dikes and the seepage intensity in the project. The Council has also identified ways of shaping the setup in such a way that scenic and recreational values are improved in relation to the current situation. The Council advises to focus on a transition in the IJsselmeer for the restoration of an estuarine transition in the Rhine drainage basin.
Amstelmeer: The opportunities for an inner dike fresh-salt gradient in the Amstelmeer are limited because of the lake's water management conditions and functions. Creating a direct link between the Amstelmeer and Balgzand (e.g. drainage lock in the Amstelmeer dike) could present prospects for re-establishing sea grass in the Amstelmeer, but even more so in Balgzand. The Council advises working up the prospects for an outer dike fresh-salt transition at the Amstelmeer.
Noard-Fryslân Bûtendyks: Creating runoff of fresh water over the Frisian salt marsh restores the salt and fresh water mixing process, which is a contributory determining factor for the salt marsh's ecological functioning. The width of the salt marshes will make it possible to make maximum use of the fresh water runoff, which could lead to local ecologically valuable gradients. The Council advises encouraging the current planning developments to also restore this type of transition at a scale that is unique by Dutch standards.
Islands: More natural control of the coastline and outer dunes in such a way that space is provided for natural processes and dynamics will offer prospects for restoring and improving the quality of (existing) fresh-salt transitions. The Council advises working at the outer dike eastern points of the Wadden islands on the sustainable restoration of the characteristic functions of fresh-salt water transitions that are (ultimately) steered by natural processes. In other areas of the islands fresh-salt gradients can be restored by means of small-scale measures combined with (active) management.

Fish migration
The restoration of migration opportunities for fish should be encouraged where possible, while taking the location-specific demands of fish-species (and other organisms) into account, with respect to the design of the passage.

Potential contribution of fresh-salt restoration to safety
The Council believes that the safety of the hinterland has the highest priority and is set as a hard precondition for all possible restoration measures. This also applies for  water management measures taken in respect to climate change (WB21). To make the coastline more climate-proof, natural processes should be used where possible. The opportunities for this are however limited and are mainly present at the Wadden islands.

Opportunities and restrictions
Fresh-salt transitions can be set up and managed at the envisaged locations in such a way that impacts on agriculture and other spatial functions can be counteracted. Improving fish migration opportunities will contribute to a better fish stock, which improves among other things the prospects of better catches for inland fishery. Several locations have opportunties to create recreational added value within the final setup. Available information about the costs and benefits of restoring the fresh-salt transitions appeared to be too limited to use as an assessment criterion. The Council advises carefully monitoring the economic effects of implementing the future projects so that the information can be used to make an effective cost-benefit analysis for future projects.

Social support
The Council advises to explicitly and transparently incorporate safety principles and preconditions in plans for the restoration of fresh-salt transitions and giving communication on this subject a prominent position before, during as well as after the measures have been put in place. The stakeholders ought to be involved in setting up and implementing the study into anticipated effects. Measures should be carried out in phases in order to accumulate knowledge and support as the work progresses.

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The Minister for Spatial Planning and the Environment, Mrs Dr J. Cramer, has asked the Wadden Sea Council to advise on the placing of wind turbines in the Wadden Region. The Minister would like to know how much scope current national policy, in particular the key planning decision Third Wadden Sea Memorandum offers for the placing of wind turbines in the Wadden Region, and the impact of wind turbines on how the region is perceived. The background to this question is the government's recent decision to work towards placing an extra 2000 megawatts of wind turbines nationally, in addition to the 1500 megawatts already placed in the Netherlands.

In view of the trend towards increasingly larger wind turbines, with shaft heights reaching as much as 80 to 120 metres, resulting in the turbines being visible over tens of kilometres, the Council judges that the national government should adopt a directing role, in cooperation with the provinces. The national government should also develop a national policy for the placing of wind turbines and of wind turbine parks. In its advice the Council subsequently provides an assessment of the permissibility of placing wind turbines in the light of the key planning decision Third Wadden Sea Memorandum. Up until now the planning permission policy has first and foremost been a matter for the municipal and provincial authorities.
The key planning decision only allows new highrise buildings on four locations along the Wadden coast, provided that they fit in the skyline. The key planning decision holds a separate case-by-case approach for wind turbines. The Council is of the opinion that wind turbines are high-rise buildings and that therefore the same policy should apply to wind turbines as to other buildings. The possible placing of the new generation of wind turbines must therefore be limited to Den Helder, Harlingen, Delfzijl and Eemshaven.
Large wind turbines can lead to bird fatalities in low numbers and disrupt bird migration routes. For that reason, the impact on birds must be taken into account when seeking suitable locations for wind turbines.
The Council then addresses the relationship between the placing of wind turbines and how the landscape is perceived. In that context the Council also makes reference to the opportunities offered by forms of sustainable energy other than wind energy. Furthermore, the perception of the Wadden landscape must be established by means of a perception survey, also establishing how an optimum social return can be achieved, taking account of both the economic return and the experience value.
The Council does not confine itself to recommending a study, but also itself provides some pointersregarding the policy to be pursued. The Council advocates the clustering of wind turbines so that they can form a landmark in the landscape. For that reason the number of small out-of-date wind turbines present in the landscape must be cleared. Wind turbines form an industrial activity and fit in best in an industrial landscape, which must be subject to safety conditions. Furthermore, the wind turbines do not need to be permitted perpetually but for a limited period of time corresponding tothe economic or technical life span of the turbines.
Finally, the Council would like to see the formulation of design criteria intended to integrate the wind turbine parks as closely as possible in the landscape and possibly to combine them with other spatial functions.

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