I drop off my daughter at the Ponderosa riding school in Knokke. She’s been riding there for years and loves it. One of the nicest parts was a quiet path through the fields that led toward the sea. Away from cars, peaceful, safe. Horse riders, walkers, cyclists, even an annual MTB race all used it. Locals have used it for decades.

Now it’s being closed off.

Three of the fields it crosses, along with a little forest, were bought by a wealthy landowner and his family who now lives there and is turning the area around his home into a private “nature reserve.” His own little Zwin. But unlike the real Zwin, this one is fenced off. No more horses. No more walkers. No more bikes.

The worst part? He’s doing it with our public money.

Seriously. There’s a system where landowners buy up agricultural land, then work with Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos (Natuur en Bos) to reclassify it as “nature.” Once that’s done, they can get public subsidies, tax breaks, and even help managing the land. In some cases they don’t pay inheritance tax. In others they get annual payments per hectare. All funded by the government. Funded by us.

So we, the public, are literally paying to lose access to places we’ve used freely for generations. It sounds like environmental protection, but in reality it just locks people out. It’s greenwashing. It’s privatisation of public space.

Now my daughter, along with cyclists and walkers, has to take a detour along a road where cars regularly go over 50 km/h. It’s unsafe. And it didn’t have to be this way.

I’ll attach a simple map showing the path (in red) and the three fields and the little forest that were bought (in yellow).
If you look closely at the satellite view, or check it yourself on Google Maps, the path is clearly visible. This wasn’t some vague trail. It was real, well-used, and part of local life.

If this frustrates you as much as it does me, please upvote or reshare this. Maybe it will reach journalists or someone in politics who can ask real questions about how public money is being used here.

This is a throwaway. I’m posting anonymously to avoid any issues for my daughter and out of fear of reprisals. But I couldn’t just stay quiet about this.

by Knokkethrowaway

26 comments

  1. One one hand I’m in favour of using private money to sustain nature reserves. It’s better than using public money, but on the other hand, if it’s private the public might lose access. So it’s a good question, and a good debate. The loss of such small paths and biking roads is indeed ‘a loss’, cause it adds value for everyone living nearby/using it. Do you know what gov institution (municipality, provincial, Flemish etc) has what jurisdiction in this topic? Knowing Belgium, it’s probably spread out. Discussing with them is probably a good start, and they should listen to their voters if the group is big enough.

    The rules regarding what the private owners can do with the land are quite strict, so it’s not like they can use public money for whatever they want. It would be a good public debate, but last thing we need are clickbait trash HLN articles ‘rich taking away nature reserves’ or something, we already have enough PVDA destroying our country. Thanks for highlighting!

  2. Check with the local authorities. I don’t think they can do this, it might be a *toegangsweg* that people used and got grandfathered in. If so they are allowed to do this.

  3. The money they would need to invest in this land will be much higher. You don’t want to know the rules for owning this kind of land. I bet you even though they receive money, they are losing on it.

    If it’s private land you should have been happy to use the road while you could.

  4. That road is, or was, classified as a public road so I assume they can’t just close it off (Geopunt.be).

    Then again, who at the city will care about rules when their rich friend wants a fancy garden..

    You’d probably need a lawyer to check actual rules or get something done. But it looks like putting down a ‘private’ sign and claiming public roads (as labelled on Geopunt.be) is common place there.

  5. I think small zandwegelingen were to be marked in a plan, when they are, they should remain a zandwegeling for the future. They did a big survey to map all the zandwegelingen in Belgium as heritage, because farmers kept on deleting them from the public use.

  6. you’re walking on private property any way, the land always belongs to someone and in this case it probably was the farmers land that had a path running on it to get from one field to the other by tractor or by bike and other people started using it. he did not need to accept the traffic through it but it was fine.

    now someone else came and says no, it’s over. just talk with the farmers and property on other land and make a new path like so

    https://preview.redd.it/3ve2k8li3c0f1.png?width=1926&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a21d1c949875fb98f81c46a517f1fd211c691b9

  7. lol no they cannot do this. Go complain at the city and or owners. And not just you, ask the people at the riding school to complain with you. And post in the local facebook group about it.

  8. Or a servetuut? 
    When it has been continuously in use for 40 years, it’s an established public path. 

  9. Please bear in mind that the rich will leave Belgium if they can no longer steal from the public/poor 😁

  11. Do your research about this path if you want to fight this. If it has existed for long enough, then it may be protected, and the public has right of access. Start by checking the “Atlas der buurtwegen”. Only an official copy from the government will be admissible in court, but you can start your research here: https://www.tragewegen.be/trage-wegen-kaart#trage-wegen-in-je-buurt

    As far as I can read maps, there has been a path here since [1969](https://i.imgur.com/l7cK5K9.jpeg), probably [1939](https://i.imgur.com/u4rG7fF.jpeg). Now do your research about right of access 🙂

  12. ohh rich people in knokke smearing each other online, exciting stuff

  13. Brings me back to the Eurostadion, and the path that supposedly runs through the Expo parking plot.

  14. Ja en? Hoog tijd om de elites opnieuw aan de Franse Revolutie te herinneren, blijkbaar hebben ze er niets uit geleerd.

  15. On the kadaster you can check if this is a wandelpad. And get in contact with authorities. If nobody speaks up, it’s gone

  16. I’ve just sent a mail to my wijkagent last friday about a landowner dumping trash (bricks and dogshit) on a path that I usually run on, got a mail today that he was going to have a talk with them…

    I just sent a mail that was like “Hey, I think this is a public path, they’ve thrown bricks on it and are literally dumping shit on the path as there never was any on it in the past 3 years that I’ve been running here, but now it’s a regular occurrence, seems to be coming from their deers… Can you confirm if this is a public path or not?”

    and he replied “I’ve checked with the commune, it is indeed a public path, I’ll go check how bad it is and speak to those people”

    I ran by there this morning and the bricks and shit are all still there, so he’ll see it as it is…

    this wijkagent also helped me with a similar issue where a property-owner had put a “gate” (pallet in reality) across a path and kept putting it back when I moved it to open the path every time I ran there, also just sent an email and got a reply a few days later that he spoke to the owner, that path has been open and clear for the past 1,5y 😀

    I would check with the wijkagent on this as these people can’t just close paths that have been in use for a long time, that’s the whole idea with these paths… if you buy a property that has one of them, you are actually supposed to keep it open and accessible…

  17. This is what the farmers have been saying all along … you CANNOT trust Agentschap voor Natuur en Bos. They are in cahoots with the business elite.

  18. small chance anything will be done about it. and even if there is something done about it they will just keep destroying the path/make it unsafe without blocking it. until authorities give up. seen it happen to many paths.

  19. did you know that under communism, party leaders just take land and public property whenever they please? Crazy right

  22. in knokke it is not so easy to do… or not if it were up to Peter Taffeiren. A lawyer who could stop Gelamco from building their mega-golf project. Maybe consult him? :p

  23. (a) dat mag niet
    (b) ge kunt dat aanvechten
    (c) daar valt VEEL geld mee te verdienen (met dat aanvechten). Rechtbanken zijn daar niet mals voor.

    Van Damme trok de afgelopen jaren al tegen verschillende gemeentebesturen naar de rechter om ze te verplichten hun buurtwegen te onderhouden en toegankelijk te maken. Vaak met succes. Begin 2020 betaalde de stad Aarschot nog een minnelijke schikking **van 1,65 miljoen euro aan Van Damme** om de procedures tegen de stad stop te zetten en verdere dwangsommen van de rechtbank te vermijden.

    [https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/04/22/voetwegenactivist-glabbeek/](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/04/22/voetwegenactivist-glabbeek/)

  25. Die weg is alvast zichtbaar in cadgis in grijs onderbroken streepjeslijn. De grijze stippellijn heeft geen bindende juridische waarde op zich. Je moet aanvullende bronnen raadplegen (zoals het kadaster, het Atlas der Buurtwegen, of het RUP/gemeentelijk wegenregister) om te weten of het pad publiek toegankelijk is, een erfdienstbaarheid is, of volledig privé. Op site van trage wegen wordt hij alvast niet gekleurd als trage weg of buurtweg.

  26. There is a guy in Flanders called Marc Van Damme, he started a lot of court cases against farmers, landowners etc…. whenever they close of these small paths. Dude made approximately €1.600.000 doing so.

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