What makes long-term perspectives endure? Lessons from Dutch nature conservation

This paper reflects on the performance and endurance of long-term perspectives and their impact on strategies, institutional change and material effects. In the past decades, the long-term perspective of a national ecological network has been a key element of Dutch nature conservation policy. By focusing on the temporal, procedural and discursive dimensions of Dutch nature conservation, the analysis shows that long-term perspectives can function as powerful coordination tools, across government levels and due time. Conversely, their actual realization often proves vulnerable to the multiple dependencies built into governance processes, including competing claims about the future and related strategies. In the context of Dutch nature conservation policy, we witness a growing discrepancy between the long-term perspective on the one hand and strategies, institutional changes and material effects on the other. We subsequently examine the underlying conditions which enabled the long-term perspective of a national ecological network to endure through time and still play an important role in the policies and actions of public and private organisations. The network of actors, institutions and material realities emerging over time provides the long-term perspective with some critical mass, while it also explains its disposition to change over time.