De betekenis van groene burgerinitiatieven

in order to get a citizens’ initiative successfully off the ground. Initiators must have good
organisational skills and social networks. As cultural capital is not equally distributed in society, giving
more responsibility to citizens’ groups and reducing the role of government as the distributor of public
goods, such as high quality green space, could lead to an unequal distribution of these green spaces.
Our study shows that green self-governance is heavily dependent on an effective network and external
sources of finance, and that government authorities are still important players. Government is still by
far the biggest source of funding, is often the owner of the land, and is decisive in clearing the formal
procedures such as planning permission. The importance of government networks and grants also lays
bare the vulnerability of green self-governance to changes in policy, both on nature and the landscape
and in related policy areas. Many initiatives see the declining budgets and funding sources, in the
social sector as well as the green domain, as a major threat to their continuity. The dominance of the
‘nature in people’s hands’ discourse in current policy therefore seems to be somewhat at odds with the
difficulty many green citizens’ initiatives have in getting funding or negotiating the regulations.
De betekenis van groene burgerinitiatieven | 15