Aanpoten plants hedgerows back into the Dutch landscape and buys valuable nature to protect it for good. A single shrub species quickly draws around a hundred other organisms, from bees and butterflies to birds and mammals. In this way, something small grows into a network of miniature nature reserves.
Agriculture & Soil
Aanpoten is a volunteer-led initiative, founded at the end of 2022 by ecologist and nature photographer Ruurd Jelle van der Leij and musician Ruben Hein. They met at a talk-show table, discovered a shared love of nature, and shared a frustration too: too much talking, too little doing. At the kitchen table a simple idea took shape, and Aanpoten was born.
The concept is simple: raise money, use it to buy native shrubs, and plant them on the land of private owners, farmers and landowners. Twice a year the duo heads out for days at a time with a van full of shrubs. In this way they restore the old cultural landscape, where hedgerows once stood between the meadows, and give biodiversity a strong push forward.
Aanpoten works along two tracks:
planting hedgerows back into the Netherlands as a springboard for biodiversity
through Grenzeloos Aanpoten, buying and protecting nature reserves at home and abroad
From a single shrub grows a network of miniature nature reserves. Start small, restore big.
The Netherlands has lost a large part of its natural wealth. Where hedgerows and tree lines once ran through the landscape, there is now often monotonous green. And green is not the same as life.
Huge loss of biodiversity. The Netherlands lost a large share of its original variety of species. In a monoculture almost nothing grows or blooms, and there is little for animals and insects to find.
A fragmented landscape. Without connections between natural places, animals and insects cannot move around. They become isolated on ever smaller islands and disappear.
Protection is fragile. Nature knows no borders: a bird that breeds in Estonia spends the winter in the Netherlands. Yet the protected status of nature can change with a shift in politics. Fragile European nature means fragile Dutch nature.
Give nature a small push and it picks up a great deal on its own. That is what Aanpoten is all about.
When you shop as usual through Terry, part of the shop's marketing budget goes to Aanpoten, as a donation and at no extra cost to you.
Your contribution helps to:
buy and plant native shrubs as hedgerows
reconnect fragmented nature
buy and permanently protect valuable nature reserves
involve more people in restoring biodiversity
For example, a contribution can help plant shrubs that grow into a living hedge, drawing in thousands of organisms if all goes well. Every hedge is a new springboard in the landscape.
In this way you support not a single shrub, but a growing network of nature that keeps on restoring itself.
Aanpoten began with a simple plan and many hands. Since the end of 2022, the initiative has planted tens of thousands of native shrubs across dozens of locations throughout the Netherlands. By the spring of 2026 the count stood at around 49,000 shrubs of ten different native species, across 181 locations. Each year, another ten to twenty thousand shrubs are added.
The landowners are a varied group: farmers who switched to regenerative farming and want to protect their food forest with a hedge, and private owners with a piece of land who do not know where to begin. For them, a hedge is a fine first step. What happens next speaks for itself: on one transformed field, tree frogs, kingfishers, otters and dozens of dragonfly species appeared, drawn in from the surroundings.
Through Grenzeloos Aanpoten, the initiative now protects more than twenty hectares of nature in Estonia, bought with crowdfunded money, with the ambition to bring land in the Netherlands back to nature as well.
Supporting through Terry is a great first step. Want to do even more? You can also:
Donate directly to Stichting AANPOTEN. Thanks to its ANBI status, your gift is tax-deductible in the Netherlands.
Own a piece of land? Sign up as a location for a hedge or tree line.
Follow Aanpoten and share their story, so more people join in.
Make your own surroundings more natural, for example with native shrubs instead of a fence.
Aanpoten is a volunteer-led initiative, housed in Stichting AANPOTEN (chamber of commerce 91491959, RSIN 865670122), based in Vinkel, the Netherlands. The foundation holds ANBI status, which means your donation is tax-deductible in the Netherlands. The board consists of Ruben Hein, Nahuel Blaton, Anouk van Esch and Ruurd Jelle van der Leij.
Your contribution goes to the work of Aanpoten: buying and planting native shrubs, and buying and protecting valuable nature. The foundation publishes a financial and activity report every year.
Support Aanpoten through Terry
Your everyday purchases help bring biodiversity back to the landscape.
