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"'They stole my fishing rights,' says professional fisher Ruub Klop from Hardinxveld, a small riverside town in the Netherlands. The thieves in question are from the federation of anglers in the southwest
of the Netherlands. It was in 1975 that Ruub suddenly discovered that the federation was renting the so-called ‘scaled fish rights’ from the State, in the same area for which he has a permit from the State to fish with legal professional fishing gear. To understand this fisher’s anger and frustration, we need to know more about the history of inland fishing in the Netherlands. In terms of geography, the Netherlands is not much more than the mouth of the river Rhine, spreading out in a huge delta. The inland water surface area is around 380,000 hectares (ha). Still, 10 per cent of the country’s surface area is freshwater, although a large part of the lakes and, especially, the swamps was converted into agricultural land through the construction of polders.
Inland fisheries is only a small sector in the Dutch economy, with some
500 persons employed in the capture fisheries. Still, it is seen as a valuable part of Dutch history and culture." |
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