Province of Gelderland

The province of Gelderland is one of the twelve provinces in the Netherlands, in the east of the country on the border with North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

Gelderland is a regional government. The main responsibilities of the province are, amongst others, nature & biodiversity, climate & energy, economy, public transport, infrastructure, business climate, livability.

Within our regional council there are 6 regional ministers. Helga Witjes is the regional minister for, amongst others, finances and economy & innovation and she is the political representative of the province of Gelderland for the ENCORE network.

Description of Environmental Challenges of the Region

The main environmental challenges for the province of Gelderland are:

• Nitrogen and the impact of high levels of nitrogen on nature reserves, and consequently the impact of this on for example construction.
• Water management and droughts due to extensive periods of droughts and heavy rainfall as results of climate change.
• Generation of renewable energy and congestion of the energy networks, as there is sometimes a surplus of renewable energy supplied and no or not enough battery facilities to store this surplus for times when demand is larger than the supply.
• Transition from a linear to a circular economy.

ENCORE Engagement

The province of Gelderland has been part of the ENCORE network since 2006. In 2022 we took over as president of the network from the Eastern and Midlands Regional Assembly in Ireland. During our presidency in 2022 and 2023 the focus was on three themes: climate action, biodiversity and circular economy. These themes have been central to the network since 2017/2018. Many expert meetings have taken place, so during these two years we focused on moving forward from conversations to cooperation with ENCORE and EU partners for the goals and ambitions of the network.

Projects

The Province of Gelderland takes part in many projects with local, regional and interregional partners. A few very interesting ongoing projects, related to the central themes of the ENCORE network, are called ‘CO2SAND’ and ‘Region Greentex’:

• CO2SAND: this is a LIFE project about making use of clay for fertilising sandy soil and thus making the soil more climate resilient.
• Regio Greentex: this is an I3 Instrument project about strengthening textile circularity in Europe.

ENCORE-Team in Gelderland

For the Province of Gelderland we have three people from the department of International Relations and Public Affairs taking part in the ENCORE steering group:

• Ellen Mulder-Metselaar, Director of International Relations and Public Affairs – Email
• Jurjen van Dijk, EU and Public Affairs advisor – Email
• Melanie van den Hoek, EU and Public Affairs advisor – Email