By Sverre Beijne – It is a sunny autumn day when I visit the park for the first time. As I enter, I see a small sandy path that creeps between two low fences. There I spot it, the Zandwolfsmelk. I notice that the plant crosses the boundary assigned to it. One stem stretches over the sandy path, growing beyond the fenced-off zone where it is supposed to remain. I take in the plant and its surroundings. Around it, other life has found its place. I see many different plant species, all overgrowing one another. Suddenly a dog barks. I stand up and look at where the sound came from. I see a barren field, full of dogs and their human companions. But that seems to be all. The rest of the park seems to be made up of patches of grass and dirt, completely overrun by the visitors.
Standing between these two zones, I feel like I am standing in between two multispecies worlds. One shaped by the rhythms of dogs and humans, the other formed through root expansion, stem emergence, flower sprouting and persistence through the seasons. Two different enactments of agency, yet both with the power to affect their surroundings.
It is this power that I am interested in. Plants are the organisms that are probably most attuned to place, far more than humans. So putting them central in explorations of space can reveal different ways in which spaces are produced. Although plants do not act through intention, they exert agency through their capacities to grow, persist, adapt, and transform environments, thereby shaping human practices, infrastructures, and governance in often subtle but profound ways.
In my research, I focus on the Zandwolfsmelk. This plant only grows in three places in The Netherlands. One of these locations is the small public park Stenen Hoofd along the IJ. The population here was small but stable, until in 2021 a restaurant owner in the park covered it with sand, killing most of the plants. Thanks to pressures from an environmental organization and the province, a small corner of the park was closed off to give the plants time and space to recover.
Today, the plants remain in this enclosed strip, protected by fences and signs warning people of their vulnerability. This gives rise to an interesting paradox: the Zandwolfsmelk, through its vulnerability, has gained the power to be an agent in the production of this landscape.
A man enters the park, and he immediately bends over the small fence to inspect a Zandwolfsmelk. I walk up to him and we start talking. He mentions that he has played a role in the conservation efforts for the plant. I tell him about my research and he excitedly tells me about what he does: “We manage this area from time to time. A few weeks ago we removed some weeds”, he says, referring to the group of volunteers he is a part of. “You see, the plant only grows in fast-heating soil, and all these grasses here cover the soil”, he says as he points to the ground. “The Zandwolfsmelk grows on calcium-rich soil, so we added shell sand here for habitat restoration.”
I ask him about the role of government in managing the plant. He answers: “It was on a list of protected species from the province, so when the restaurant here threw sand over them, we filed for an enforcement request at the provincial environmental service, and through that we became able to create and maintain this area.”
This interaction opened my eyes, this plant has, through its vulnerability, assembled an infrastructure of care around itself, where a group of volunteers is encouraged, upon behalf of the plant, to choose what belongs and what must be excluded. Through attention, labour, and negotiation the conservation of this plant becomes a continuous, relational practice. One in which the vulnerability of the Zandwolfsmelk holds most power.
The power of the Zandwolfsmelk reaches even further. It has mobilized legal structures around it. It has transcended from being a biological lifeform in the backdrop of our world to becoming a legal entity. And as a legal entity it has become the central actor through which the production of this small corner of Amsterdam is negotiated.
Sverre Beijne is an alumni of the Bachelor Programme Social and Cultural Anthropology of the VU, and currently a student of the Master programme Social Geography at the UvA.