Het Nederlandse natuurbeleid in zijn institutionele context: Beschrijving en analyse van de interne en externe congruentie van het Nederlandse natuurbeleidsarrangement in relatie tot landbouwbeleid, waterbeleid (voor de grote rivieren) en recreatiebeleid (1975-2018)

This report concerns the internal and external congruence of Dutch nature policy arrangements between 1975 and 2018. The conclusion is that the internal congruence increased during this period, but that this led to a narrowing of nature policy and a focus on specific protected areas and species under EU law. This is one reason why the external congruence with policy arrangements in fields such as agriculture, water and recreation has generally reduced in recent years. Continuing with the current narrow nature policy will probably have negative consequences for the legitimacy of this policy.A possible solution is to keep the current narrow nature policy intact, but at the same time attempt to develop a much broader nature policy with better possibilities for policy integration with other policy arrangements. It is however uncertain how far this would also increase the legitimacy of the narrow nature policy. A radical renewal of EU nature policy would seem to offer a way forward, but is not feasible in the short term.