This is part of a whirlwind 21-day study tour of the Netherlands, with emphasis on Dutch environmental policy and management, but also including staple Dutch tourist fare like the miniature city of Madurodam and a visit to Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.
'They wanted lectures, but not too many, some workshops, but mostly they fancied site visits', organiser Elisabeth van de Ven from the CSTM-Cartesius Institute explains, 'so that is what we arranged.' The Cartesius Institute based in Franeker, Friesland, has organised similar tours previously. Paid for by their employers the foreign guests are shown the practice of Dutch environmental policy.
Consequently, since their arrival on 3 September the Taiwanese have among other things visited the Xerox factory, the water company NUON, a Wadden island, museums, and a building site of environmentally friendly housing; heard from the police about environmental crime; once cooked their own Dutch food: pea soup and 'boerenkool'; and experienced one of Holland's most pressing environmental problems first-hand when they were stuck in traffic for three hours due to the transport protests.
The last week of the study tour is spent partly on campus where they will hear about, for example, the environmental problems caused by pig farming. The group will also go on site visits, to a waste treatment plant in Amsterdam, a soil treatment site near
Utrecht, and to Hengelo to learn more about the interactive decision forming process in local government.
The final day of the study tour will be spent in The Hague, visiting Madurodam and the panoramic painting of Scheveningen in Panorama Mesdag. On Sunday they will fly back to Taiwan having seen a great deal of the Netherlands and its environment.
