On June 6, 2014, the Anders Wall Prize for exceptional contributions to the European countryside was awarded to Christophe Lenaerts of the Heihuyzen Estate in Belgium. The prize, a check worth \u20ac15,000, was presented to Mr. Lenaerts during the General Assembly of the Friends of the Countryside at Castello di Udine in Italy.<\/p>\n
This prize has been awarded for over 10 years by the European Landowners\u2019 Organization and the Swedish Anders WALL Foundation. This is in collaboration with the non-profit Friends of the Countryside (FCS), the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture in Stockholm, and more recently with DG Environment of the European Commission. The prize rewards efforts for the European countryside through landscape protection, biodiversity improvement, cultural heritage preservation, and contributions to the rural economy.<\/p>\n
This year’s winner, Christophe Lenaerts, inherited his 400-hectare Belgian estate in 2007 from his father. With his background as an ICT entrepreneur, he transformed the severely damaged forest into an actively maintained, profitable, and sustainable estate in less than 5 years. The forestry now seen at Heihuyzen is the result of intensive contacts with local stakeholders, administration, and legislators in Flanders. Today, the estate supports a wide range of activities including education, hunting and sports, scouting, and many others. Christophe’s vision for the future is reflected in his determination to share his experiences, knowledge, and economic model with the next generation of stakeholders and land managers. It is his ambition to make the Heihuyzen Estate a role model in Belgium and beyond. To shape this challenge, he recently became Secretary General of the non-profit Landelijk Vlaanderen and Vice-President of the Royal Belgian Forestry Society. The winner was “delighted” and “filled with pride” to receive this prize, along with the encouragement from Pia Bucella, Director of Natural Capital at DG Environment of the European Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On June 6, 2014, the Anders Wall Prize for exceptional contributions to the European countryside was awarded to Christophe Lenaerts of the Heihuyzen Estate in Belgium. The prize, a check worth \u20ac15,000, was presented to Mr. Lenaerts during the General Assembly of the Friends of the Countryside at Castello di Udine in Italy. This prize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[252],"tags":[321,313,322,257],"class_list":["post-8931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-anders-wall","tag-domein","tag-elo","tag-heihuyzen"],"yoast_head":"\n