Oldelamer Roaming Route

The village of Oldelamer is about three kilometres west of Wolvega. The village is spread over a large area and has a small centre. The wetland landscape to the northwest was created by peat cutting. This area is now protected as Brandemeer nature reserve. In recent years, nature conservation organisations and government agencies have extracted more peat. This has created a contiguous wetland area.

Part of the cycling route leads you through the Rottige Meente nature reserve. There were two peat cutting settlements here. The De Scheene waterway ran between them. The name ‘De Scheene’ refers to the fact that the water divided the area in two. Peat cutting reached a peak here in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century and left its mark on the landscape. As you cycle through the area you will probably notice the many peat pits and narrow strips of land. In the summer, all kinds of aquatic plants grow in the peat pits. In the winter they die back and fall to the ground.

So the peat pits gradually become shallower and shallower. The reeds that grow in the shallower areas are cut back in the winter. Over a period of many years, the reedbeds eventually rise above the water level and become too dry to support abundant reed growth. At this point the vegetation is cut back in the summer, the last of the reeds disappear and the reedbeds are slowly replaced by nutrient-poor hay meadows filled with wildflowers. If the vegetation is never cleared, the area becomes an alder and birch swamp forest. This process of plant succession has been happening at the Rottige Meente nature reserve for the last hundred years and is still in progress. Parts of the area are at different stages of this process, so there are a wide variety of biotopes that provide highly favourable habitat for many species of wildlife. At the Rottige Meente nature reserve you can see the distinctive landscape left by peat cutting and how it continues to evolve for centuries to come.