Kattendel Beach (#1 of Thijsse´s Wish Trilogy) Traditional Geocache

“Our dunes are the product of the interaction between sea and sand, wind and water, flora and fauna. Where this process is allowed to take its natural course, it shapes a landscape of magnificent beauty and wealth, of everlasting appeal, which none of the best landscape designers could even come close to creating, no matter how hard they try.” This sentence opens the memorandum that Jac. P. Thijsse wrote in 1944, a year before his death, about the dunes “between the Zandvoortschen Straatweg road and the Noordzeekanaal channel” which he advocated having designated as a national park or nature reserve and recreation area called De Kennemerduinen. Jac. P. Thijsse lived and worked most of his life in Haarlem and environs. He was one of the founding fathers of nature conservation in the Netherlands, but was at the same time a genuine innovator of education. All this makes it all the more special that part of Thijsse’s dream should become reality the year of commemoration of his death 50 years ago. The designation as National Park will enable the eleven proprietors and stewards of Zuid-Kennemerland to intensify their co-operation and better co-ordinate their management. Nature preservation as well as public and normal education will receive an extra impulse as a result.