Why is Amsterdam installing tiny staircases along its canals?
These special steps were installed as part of an initiative to protect wildlife that sometimes falls into the water and cannot climb out because of the high sides.
Now, Amsterdam is looking to create similar escape routes for its small creatures.
So far this year, 19 cats have drowned in the city's canals, a statistic that has prompted local pro-animal party PvdD to propose taking a leaf from Amersfoot's book.
Now, Amsterdam councillors have voted to earmark €100,000 to make the waterways safer for animals.
Amsterdam to install canal escape routes for cats
In June this year, Amersfoort, in the province of Utrecht, announced it was installing 300 exit ladders along its waterways to help prevent wildlife from drowning.
Now, Amsterdam has agreed to ask the animal welfare organisation Dierenambulance to identify where cats and other creatures are most frequently unable to escape from the water along its canals.
The council will use this information to select sites for the new escape routes.
According to the Dutch news site Parool, the city's animal welfare chief Zita Pels was already in favour of a project like this, but abandoned the idea because of a lack of funds.
The PvdD, however, highlighted that there is an unused €100,000 in her budget reserved for so-called 'wildlife exit points', allowing the scheme to get the go-ahead.
14 people die a year in Amsterdam's canals
Cats can accidentally fall into canals when they get startled, Maggie Ruitenberg from the feline information centre Katten Kenniscentrum told Dutch daily Volkskrant.
Although cats are able to swim, they get exhausted quickly because their fur is weighed down by the water. 'A ladder can really save their life, as long as there are enough of them,' she said.
Official figures also show that around 14 people a year drown in Amsterdam's canals by accident.
Between 2014 and 2024, 142 people died in the city's waterways, many of them foreign tourists who fell in when drunk or under the influence of drugs.
In some places in the city, renovated canals have been fitted with special ledges that people can hold on to if they find themselves struggling to get out of the water.
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Euronews
25-07-2025
- Euronews
Why is Amsterdam installing tiny staircases along its canals?
Along the canals of Amersfoort in the Netherlands are hundreds of little wooden staircases leading out of the water and onto the banks. These special steps were installed as part of an initiative to protect wildlife that sometimes falls into the water and cannot climb out because of the high sides. Now, Amsterdam is looking to create similar escape routes for its small creatures. So far this year, 19 cats have drowned in the city's canals, a statistic that has prompted local pro-animal party PvdD to propose taking a leaf from Amersfoot's book. Now, Amsterdam councillors have voted to earmark €100,000 to make the waterways safer for animals. Amsterdam to install canal escape routes for cats In June this year, Amersfoort, in the province of Utrecht, announced it was installing 300 exit ladders along its waterways to help prevent wildlife from drowning. Now, Amsterdam has agreed to ask the animal welfare organisation Dierenambulance to identify where cats and other creatures are most frequently unable to escape from the water along its canals. The council will use this information to select sites for the new escape routes. According to the Dutch news site Parool, the city's animal welfare chief Zita Pels was already in favour of a project like this, but abandoned the idea because of a lack of funds. The PvdD, however, highlighted that there is an unused €100,000 in her budget reserved for so-called 'wildlife exit points', allowing the scheme to get the go-ahead. 14 people die a year in Amsterdam's canals Cats can accidentally fall into canals when they get startled, Maggie Ruitenberg from the feline information centre Katten Kenniscentrum told Dutch daily Volkskrant. Although cats are able to swim, they get exhausted quickly because their fur is weighed down by the water. 'A ladder can really save their life, as long as there are enough of them,' she said. Official figures also show that around 14 people a year drown in Amsterdam's canals by accident. Between 2014 and 2024, 142 people died in the city's waterways, many of them foreign tourists who fell in when drunk or under the influence of drugs. In some places in the city, renovated canals have been fitted with special ledges that people can hold on to if they find themselves struggling to get out of the water.
France 24
01-07-2025
- France 24
'Every day I see land disappear': Suriname's battle to keep sea at bay
For years, endangered leatherbacks and green turtles have emerged onto Braamspunt beach to lay their eggs. But the land spit at the tip of the Suriname river estuary is rapidly vanishing as erosion, caused by rising sea levels linked to climate change, gobbles up entire swathes of Paramaribo's coastline. "Maybe we'll get one more season out of this," Kiran Soekhoe Balrampersad, a guide who accompanied a group of tourists on a recent expedition to see the nesting turtles, told AFP. "But after that there'll no longer be a beach," he added dolefully. Suriname, South America's smallest country, is one of the most vulnerable in the world to rising sea levels. Nearly seven out of ten people in the former Dutch colony of 600,000 inhabitants live in low-lying coastal areas, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Every day I see a piece of my land disappear," said Gandat Sheinderpesad, a 56-year-old farmer who has lost 95 percent of his smallholding to the sea. Local authorities have for years been trying to find a way to hold back the tide. "Some areas are not problematic because we have 5, 10, even 20 kilometers (3, 6 or 12 miles) of mangrove" acting as a buffer between the waves and the shore, Minister of Public Works Riad Nurmohamed told AFP. But near Paramaribo, "there is just one kilometer so it's a very vulnerable zone," he added. In 2020, a program to restore the capital's mangroves was launched. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres sought to add VIP power to the initiative in 2022 by wading into the mud to personally plant seedlings. But five years later, Sienwnath Naqal, the climate change and water management expert who led the project, surveys a scene of desolation. The sea is now lapping at the edge of a road and the wooden stakes to which he had attached hundreds of samplings are largely bare. High seas carried away the substrate sediment, leaving the roots exposed. "Over the last two to three years the water forcefully penetrated the mangroves, which were destroyed," Nurmohamed said. The dredging of sand at the entrance to Paramaribo estuary to facilitate the passage of boats headed upriver to the port also contributed to the erosion, said Naqal. But like the Amazon rainforest in neighboring Brazil, the destruction was also deliberate in places, with farmers uprooting mangroves to make way for crops. 'No time to waste' With the water lapping at the feet of Paramaribo's 240,000 people, Suriname has changed tack and set about building a dyke. For Sheinderpesad, the levee represents his last chance of remaining on his land. "I have nowhere else to go. When we have the dyke, I will be safer, although I'm not sure for how long," he said. The 4.5 kilometer-long barrier will cost $11 million, which the government has vowed to fund from state coffers. "If you go see donors it takes years before you can start to built. We have no time to waste, we'll be flooded," Nurmohamed explained. But plugging one hole in the country's maritime defenses will not suffice to keep the mighty Atlantic at bay. The government wants to build up the entire network of dykes that dot the country's 380-kilometer coastline. It's just not sure where to find the money. "It's a colossal investment," Nurmohamed said. The country's newly discovered offshore oil deposits may provide the answer. Last year, French group TotalEnergies announced a $10.5 billion project to exploit an oil field off Suriname's coast with an estimated capacity of producing 220,000 barrels per day.
Euronews
19-06-2025
- Euronews
Netherlands returns more than 100 Benin Bronzes looted from Nigeria
It took more than a century but they are finally home. The Netherlands have returned 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, nearly 130 years after they were looted by British colonial troops. This shipment is the largest physical return of Benin artefacts to Nigeria to date. The Netherlands had agreed to their transfer in February upon request from the Nigerian government. The official handover ceremony will take place on 21 June at the National Museum in Lagos, in the presence of representatives from both nations. 'The symbolism of this occasion cannot be overemphasised and what it means for the pride and dignity of not just the Benin people, but the whole of Nigeria', said Olugbile Holloway, director-general of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, in a statement. 'We thank the Netherlands for the good example set and look forward to forging even greater ties between our two nations through cultural diplomacy', he added. Most of the Bronzes were part of the Dutch State Collection and were exhibited at the Wereldmuseum in Leiden. Four items will remain on display there on a loan agreement. 'We congratulate Nigeria on their persistent advocacy for the return of the Benin Bronzes', said Dutch Ambassador for International Cultural Cooperation Dewi van de Weerd. 'We hope that this restitution is not the final chapter, but the foundation for further cooperation between Dutch and Nigerian museums.' The Benin Bronzes are a group of several thousand plaques and sculptures made between the 15th and 19th centuries. Artefacts include ornaments, jewellery and masks, many of which decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, now the Southern Nigerian Edo state. Most of these objects were stolen in 1897, during a brutal punitive expedition in which British troops killed thousands of people and looted the palace. Following the violent raid, the Kingdom of Benin was absorbed into colonial Nigeria. The stolen pieces were eventually sold to over 130 museums in 20 countries, mostly in the United Kingdom and Germany. Nigeria has relentlessly campaigned over the years to reclaim the Bronzes. The country signed a repatriation agreement with Germany in July 2022 for the return of 1,130 Benin Bronzes. Twenty of them landed in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, in December 2022. Nigeria also sent a repatriation request to the British Museum in October 2021. The institution retains over 900 objects from the Kingdom of Benin. Debates over the restitution of Africa's looted art has reached several European countries in recent years. Benin received 26 royal treasures from France in 2021. The pieces were stolen during the 1892 colonisation of the Dahomey kingdom. Mati Diop's 2024 documentary Dahomey chronicled the restitution process. The Nigerian government has yet to announce how and where the newly returned Benin Bronzes will be displayed. In the meantime, young contemporary artists from Benin city, in southern Nigeria, have put together an exhibition on 'Reclaiming heritage: new narratives', currently on display in the National Museum in Lagos. Renowned British actor, author and broadcaster Stephen Fry has labelled Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling a 'lost cause' and stated that she has been 'radicalised by TERFs' - the acronym that stands for 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist'. The term is used by transgender activists against gender critics like Rowling, who has dedicated much of her online presence to defending her views while expressing transphobic views. During the recording of the podcast The Show People, Fry, who previously narrated all seven Harry Potter audiobooks, said: "She has been radicalised I fear and it maybe she has been radicalised by TERFs, but also by the vitriol that is thrown at her.' As reported by The Daily Mail, Fry continued: 'It is unhelpful and only hardens her and will only continue to harden her I am afraid. I am not saying that she not be called out when she says things that are really cruel, wrong and mocking. She seems to be a lost cause for us.' 'I am sorry because I always liked her company,' he added. 'I found her charming, funny and interesting and then this thing happened, and it completely altered the way she talks and engages with the world now.' He continued by saying that Rowling's 'contemptuous' comments 'add to a terribly distressing time for trans people.' Stephen Fry spoke in the aftermath of the UK Supreme Court ruling in April that determined that 'woman' meant a biological female and not gender. Lord Hodge said the five Supreme Court justices had unanimously decided that 'the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex.' Many expressed fears that the ruling could put trans and non-binary people in danger. Stonewall's chief executive Simon Blake said that the ruling 'will be incredibly worrying for the trans community and all of us who support them.' Meanwhile, Rowling celebrated the ruling by posting a picture of herself smoking a cigar on her yacht. Fry's recent comments have been met with a torrent of bile online... ... as well as some support, highlighting quite how divisive the issue remains. Fry is not the only former Harry Potter star to speak out and criticise Rowling's continued hateful rhetoric. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have all spoken out against her controversial views. Last year, Radcliffe told The Atlantic that Rowling's views 'make me really sad', adding: 'Because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.' Watson expressed her support, stating: "Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are." Meanwhile Rupert Grint said: "I firmly stand with the trans community... Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment." Rowling previously said that she wouldn't forgive the Harry Potter stars who have criticised her views. 'Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women's hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces,' she wrote on X. Earlier this year, Rowling reignited tensions with the actors by taking an indirect jab at Radcliffe, Watson and Grint. In March, she was asked: 'What actor/actress instantly ruins a movie for you?' Rowling replied: 'Three guesses. Sorry, but that was irresistible.' By contrast, Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the franchise, said he remains 'grateful' to Rowling. 'I'm not really that attuned,' said Felton. 'The only thing I always remind myself is that I've been lucky enough to travel the world. Here I am in New York. And I have not seen anything bring the world together more than Potter, and she's responsible for that. So I'm incredibly grateful.' His comments sparked a wave of differing reactions - some applauded him for what they called a 'classy response,' while others condemned his words as 'atrocious,' 'spineless,' and 'disappointing.'
