| The Heritage Community Doel & Polder is an association
that stands up for the threatened heritage of Doel and its
polders.
Doel is a 700-year old village in the Flemish polder aside
the river Scheldt, north of the port of Antwerp. The expanding
port threatens the village from the 1970s on. Hereby sacrificing
local rural communities and heritage (farms, villages and
landscape) to industrial interests in an area of about 15
km2.
Today the destruction of Doel and its polders for the expansion
of the harbour is economically not viable. Village and polder
are designated as residential and agrarian area with historical
value. The government did everything to leave the properties
they acquired susceptible to decay and plunder. That gave
rise to the argument that ‘polder’ heritage is
without worth and can be torn down.
EGD&P stands for an alternative that
integrates soft values and hard values: Doel can become the
link between hard values of city and port and soft values
of the open space of the polder with small villages and natural,
agricultural and cultural heritage. Inspiration has been found
in the Convention of Faro and the integrated policy of heritage
conservation & spatial planning in the Netherlands (Belvedere
Note, 1999). EGD&P is an international
community, a network of heritage organisations in Flanders
and throughout Europe. It reflects, agitates and aspires to
a partnership with the government to safeguard the future
of the Polder.
Heritage is more as some relic of the past. Heritage is a
living entity of beacons in a lasting environment, building
bricks for a qualitative rich life. Heritage and environment
are interwoven, but these are however changeable data. Economical,
social, demographic, cultural and ecological factors are all
influencing, so all the relevant actors must guide change
in cooperation.
The swallow has become the symbol of our struggle. Swallows
are the living link between nature, culture and infrastructure.
A swallow flies more than 10000 kilometres away, but always
returns to its old nest, their and our home! Heritage is a
connecting force.
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