Going to the Co-op takes twice as long – but you just might see a

stork

An experiment in democratic management of the environment

By John Hille, the Ideas Bank Foundation

Over the past four years, the Halkær Valley in Nothern Jutland has seen a remarkable
process of social and ecological change. This process is described in a forthcoming book by
Kurt Aagaard Nielsen and Birger Steen Nielsen: “En mennenskelig natur – Aktionsforskning
for bæredygtighed og politisk kultur” (A Human Nature – Action Research for Sustainability
and Political Culture). The present article is based on the draft of this book as well as
presentations held by its authors at a seminar arranged by the Ideas Bank in the autumn of
2005.

In Norway, measures to protect the environment – ranging from the establishment of national
parks to bans on new building close to the shoreline or on driving noisy snow scooters in the
mountains – have often met with resistance from local communities. This has made parts of
the environmental movement sceptical of local democracy and devolution of power, while
other sections of the population have a rub against central government for not respecting the
wishes of their communities.

Such conflicts are not uncommon in Denmark either. When central or regional authorities
have wished to establish nature reserves or “regenerate” nature on existing agricultural land,
they have often met local resistance. Country folks tend to be especially sceptical when they
are presented with plans that have been more or less “sewn up” by central authorities and
their expert advisers – and the fact that such plans may be strongly applauded by green
groups based in the cities, does little to help.

Is it possible to achieve sustainable management of the environment in a way that doesn’t

limit the scope of local democracy, but strengthens it instead? That’s what they’ve tried in the
Halkær Valley. The results so far are encouraging.

Environmental problems in the Halkær Valley

The Halkær Valley borders the Halkær Stream, which flows into Halkær Bredning (bay), a
part of the larger Nibe Bredning, in its turn a part of the Limfjord that divides the northernmost
part of Jutland in two. The area lies about 25 km west of the city of Aalborg. As defined here,
it is about 20 km2 in extent and has some 1000 inhabitants, who live either in one of the four
hamlets of Vegger, Ejdrup, Skørbæk and Halkær, or on individual homesteads.

The valley faces serious environmental challenges. Halkær Bay is virtually dead, as fish,
eelgrass and other organisms have been killed off by the nitrogen-rich agricultural runoff led
there by the Halkær Stream and the smaller Skørbæk Stream. The Halkær Stream once
meandered through a series of wetlands, but in the early 20th century the stream was
straightened and the wetlands drained to provide more land for farming. This not only
destroyed the biodiversity that was associated with the wetland habitat, but also exacerbated
pollution, as there was no longer anything to trap the excess nutrients before they flowed into
Halkær Bay.

In the mid-1990s the regional council of North Jutland designated the valley as an area of
special interest for nature regeneration. A number of measures were subsequently carried
out. They included returning sections of the Halkær Stream to its old meandering course,
depositing gravel in the stream bed to allow fish to spawn, and reducing emissions of
phosphorous (but not of nitrogen, which was causing the problems downstream in the bay).

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However, some of the regional authorities’ projects were unpopular with the local community,
and some had to shelved because it proved impossible to establish a constructive dialogue.

Action research – an impulse from outside

In 2001 the Danish Nature Council, as part of a programme whose aim was to “illuminate
citizens’ attitudes to nature”, made a small grant for an action research project. The
recipients were Kurt Aagaard Nielsen and Birger Steen Nielsen of Roskilde University, who
intended to carry out their project in two localities – Hillerød north of Copenhagen and the
Halkær Valley. In the nature of action research, this project aimed at more than simply
“illuminating” people’s attitudes. As Nielsen and Nielsen (no relations – Nielsen is a very
common name in Denmark) write:

“Together with the inhabitants of the Halkær Valley, where we did most of our work, we
turned the question of “attitudes to nature” into one of future environmental and societal
development. The citizens’ own ideas on how to manage the environment in a democratic
way would be central, but the point of departure would be the full context of their lives – not
environmental management as an area of undifferentiated professional expertise.”

In short, it was a matter of starting a dialogue on the future of the valley, in which the
environment would be an important issue but not an isolated sectoral one.

The conditions for starting a successful dialogue were unpromising in some respects, though
more promising in others. The Halkær Valley as a whole was not a particularly close-knit
community. Administratively, it was divided between three municipalities, whose “bits” of the
valley were at the very periphery of each of the three. There was little local employment and
few local services. Apart from the few full-time farmers, most of the population commuted to
the surrounding towns for work. Services were largely limited to a Co-op store in Vegger and
an independent school in Ejdrup. There was little daily contact between the four hamlets. On
the other hand, there was a local CSO, the “Halkær Valley Citizens’ Association”, which
aimed to create an “ecological experimental zone” in the valley. This was a small group of
people who did not represent the population at large, but who had had some success in
making the Halkær Kro (pub) into a venue for cultural events, complete with organic food.
There were also fairly strong community associations in each of the villages of Vegger,
Ejdrup and Skørbæk.

Planning upside-down
The design of the action research project included several stages, centering on a future
workshop for citizens of the valley, to be followed by a “research workshop”, at which citizens
would meet outside experts and representatives of local and regional government. Although
Nielsen and Nielsen had first come into contact with the Halkær Valley Citizens’ Association,
they did not ask it to issue invitations to the future workshop. Instead, they contacted the
three community associations in Vegger, Ejdrup and Skørbæk, which all showed positive
interest in the project and invited people to take part in the workshop. This was important, as
they enjoyed the confidence of people in their respective hamlets, whereas attitudes to the
Citizen’s Association were more mixed. For the same reason, the workshop took place in the
school in Ejdrup rather than the pub in Halkær, which had better facilities but was associated
with the “greenies”.

Some 30 people attended the future workshop, held on a Saturday in January 2002. A future
workshop always includes three phases: criticism, utopian visioning and implementation. The
visioning phase of this workshop produced a lot of ideas for environmental and social
improvements in the valley. During the implementation phase, working groups were
established to develop these ideas into six “prospects of the future”, which ranged from
establishing a Development Fund for the valley via new housing developments to attract

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people interested in semi-communal living, to improving conditions for canoeing on and
walking or cycling along the Halkær Stream.

The research workshop took place in two stages, one lasting a day and a half in April, the
other one day in May. The April workshop was attended by 15 of the citizens who had taken
part in the future workshop, plus an equal number of outsiders – scientists and
representatives of the authorities. All the six working groups were represented, and
presented the prospects on which they had worked over the past three months. One of the
proposals to come out of this work – ultimately drawing on the ideas generated at the future
workshop – was now presented under the heading of “Give the valley back to Nature”. The
role of the outsiders at the research workshop was to comment on, and if necessary criticize,
the working groups’ proposals on the basis of their knowledge as experts. In other words, the
planning process was being turned upside-down: instead of citizens’ being invited at a late
stage to comment on proposals presented by experts, the reverse was taking place.

By splitting the research workshop into two stages several weeks apart, it was possible to
invite fresh experts to attend the second meeting – people better able to answer difficult
questions that had been posed at the first. Also, the working groups could use the intervening
weeks to improve their proposals in the light of criticism and suggestions received at the April
meeting. The May meeting focused mainly on questions of how conflicts (or potential
conflicts) that work so far had thrown up might be resolved. One of the new invitees was an
expert on property transactions from the Regional Council. Through his participation, the
group that had proposed to give the valley – or more precisely parts of it – back to Nature
discovered new ways in which the farmers who would be affected might be compensated
through land swaps. This was in spite of the fact that the Regional Council itself had not
always been successful when it had proposed land swaps in order to carry out its own nature
regeneration projects. Another potentially contentious issue was who ought to coordinate
further development and implementation of the various proposals. On the one hand there
was the Citizens’ Association, which might have regarded itself as the obvious candidate –
on the other hand, it was not truly representative of the citizens. An interim solution was
found in a joint committee consisting of the Board of the Citizens’ Association plus
representatives of each of the community associations in the hamlets. This solution was
made easier by the fact that most of the people who would sit on the joint committee had got
to know each other better through the workshops and working groups.

The snowball starts rolling

The action research project as such was concluded with a “market day” in September 2002,
in which between 100 and 150 people participated. The working groups exhibited their
proposals at the school in Ejdrup. On the same day, “Vegger Harbour” – a canoe jetty
symbolizing the vision of a more accessible Halkær Stream – was formally opened, and
there were various lectures and sports events. The day was finished off with a political
meeting attended by prominent representatives of the Regional Council as well as two of the
municipalities between which the valley is divided. On the following day the Aalborg
newspaper, Nordjyllands Stiftstidende, wrote:
““To be honest, when I first heard of this project I thought it must be something cooked up by
longhaired people who hadn’t moved with the times since 1968”, said Niels Christian
Kirketerp <the deputy leader of the Regional Council, who had been present at the market
day – JH>. But his scepticism has since turned into something approaching respect.”

The other politicians present also praised the citizens’ initiatives, though they issued fewer
firm promises of support than some were wishing for.

The market day was anything but a conclusion to local activity in the valley. It was rather a
sign that a snowball had started rolling, which would lead to significant results over the
coming three years.

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Some 100 people – i.e. a significant proportion of the adult population – have taken an active
part in realizing the proposals that came out of the workshop process. In 2003 the Citizens’
Association, once a fairly marginal group, elected a new board including representatives of
the local community associations, and is now much closer to being regarded as the common
voice of the Halkær Valley. Since 2003, it has published a twice-yearly newsletter with
updates on everything happening in the valley, which is distributed to all households.
Alongside the existing associations, a very active women’s network has been established.

A network of paths and facilities for canoeing along the Halkær Stream is largely in place. A
new outdoor kindergarten has been established. The school in Ejdrup has become more
involved in monitoring environmental conditions along the stream. Eight new eco-houses
have already been built, and a further 15 are planned. This makes for the biggest “building
boom” in the valley since the arrival of the railway 100 years ago.

From a purely environmental perspective, the most important single result so far is that
agreement was reached with affected farmers to return a significant part of the valley to
Nature – in the shape of a lake measuring 1 km2, surrounded by a further 0.5 km2 of
wetlands. This project, which will provide a new habitat for frogs, waterfowl and other animals
as well as reducing pollution of the bay, is nearly completed.

One project that was not proposed by any of the workshops in 2002, but rather grew out of
the new climate of dialogue that followed, is a large biogas plant which several farmers are
planning to establish. If realized, it will produce enough electricity to supply 3000 households
– i.e. many times more than those who live in the valley.

Of storks and stores

Many country people in Denmark regard the disappearance of storks as one of the most
obvious signs that something is amiss in their natural environment. This was also mentioned
during the criticism phase of the future workshop in 2002. For years, there have been no
storks in the valley, or at most a solitary bird. The reason is that storks eat frogs – where
there are no wetlands and therefore no frogs, there will be no storks either. In 2004, a pair of
storks nested in Vegger, for the first time in many years. They may have come a little early,
as there were no nesting storks in 2005. But from now on the chances of seeing more storks
should be much better.

While waiting for more storks, people in the Halkær Valley have already experienced major
changes. One inhabitant sums them up by saying that it now takes twice as long as it used to
to visit the Co-op in Vegger. Buying groceries has become time-consuming because all the
activities and discussions that have been going on since 2002 mean that people who were
previously just on a nod, or who didn’t know each other at all – as was often the case if they
came from different hamlets – have become acquainted. You can’t just go to the checkout
and pay any more. There’ll always be someone else in the store who expects you to chat!

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