Twenty years ago, you might not have recognised Jan van de Venis. A materialist through and through, focused on money, a better car, a bigger house, shiny gadgets. “My parents were always working. My father was never there,” he says. “I wanted to achieve something too. I wanted to prove that to my father.”
Today, that same Jan is known as an ombudsman for future generations. He spends his week defending the rights of nature and the national park, while also running his own human rights practice. A transformation that goes beyond a simple career change. What drove him to take such a different path, and how did he do it?
Home among trees and deep time
We meet Jan at his home near Utrecht, where the surroundings already reveal a great deal about his new worldview. Next to the house runs a ditch where geese forage beneath neat rows of trees. In his own garden there are trees too, placed more freely, as if they chose their own spot. From his office on the ground floor, Jan looks out at this scene every day.
“On average, someone lives in a house for seven years,” he begins. “If you plant a tree there, it will outlive several generations of residents. So who does that tree actually belong to?” The answer he is steering towards is simple: the tree belongs to itself. “Some trees live for a thousand years. Once you realise that, you suddenly enter into a completely different relationship with the system. You start to sing a different tune.”
Where the Romans once drew the line
This awareness of deep time extends far beyond the trees for Jan. That little ditch bordering his house? It was once the boundary of Roman-occupied territory, the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Limes. “In the first centuries AD, the side where this house now stands was occupied territory, and on the other side people were free,” he says, pointing out of the window.
For the people living then, that line meant everything: the difference between life under Roman rule or in freedom, between adopting foreign customs or holding on to their own traditions. A border that shaped lives and cultures.
“And this ditch,” Jan continues, “a branch of the IJssel, is a river I have actually lived by almost my entire life. I know it from source to mouth.” The water connects him not only through time, but also through space. “This water flowed here long before the Romans arrived and connects us to the source: the Swiss Jungfraujoch, also World Heritage. Meltwater from there reaches Texel within a few weeks.”
Water as lifeline, time as a timeline. “Being truly here, truly understanding what the relevance of our place is, has everything to do with understanding these relationships,” Jan reflects. “Zooming out makes you realise how small you are.”
The turning point in Rio
But how do you go from making money to standing up for generations? “My frame of reference had set me on a materialistic path,” Van de Venis admits. “Money and status mattered to me. But as I became more connected, switching to different work and becoming vegetarian suddenly felt very logical.”
The real turning point came in 2012, during a visit to Rio. There, Dr Marcel Szabó, the Hungarian Ombudsman for Future Generations, spoke about international environmental law and the responsibility of states towards generations to come. “What moved me was this new perspective on the long line,” says Van de Venis. “And the possible impact of my personal desire for more and better, image and the need to prove myself.”
He realised we carry responsibility. For the line of time. The line of water. The line of waste, which suddenly seems not to exist once it leaves our doorstep. We seem to have learned that nothing has consequences anymore.
“If I could infringe on a human life: instant karma. We’ve lost our connection to the impact of our actions,” Van de Venis muses.
Ancestors in our DNA
This insight led Jan to dig into his own history. “I mapped my entire ancestry. Indigenous Dutch, and apparently far, far down the line, Viking. Multiple generations experienced devastating floods.”
At the same time, he learned about epigenetics. “DNA is a carrier of memory. Indigenous cultures say that too.” Traumas such as floods can create stress markers that are passed down for generations. A well-known example is the ‘Hunger Winter babies’, children exposed in the womb to the famine of 1944–1945. They carry biological traces of this throughout their lives, effects that can even be passed on to their children.
“We need to move beyond the belief ‘I don’t know them, so I don’t carry them in my heart,’” Jan argues. “Because in fact we do have a strong relationship. Whether it is invisibly embedded in our behaviour, or visible in our transformative impact on the environment.” It is what the English call kith and kin, not only our blood relatives (kin), but also the broader community and environment (kith) that shapes us and for which we are responsible.
From emotion to systemic change
“Something empathetic, something emotional had to switch on before I could do something very bureaucratic and systemic,” Jan explains. Now he advocates for the interests of future generations and for the rights of nature within the Dutch legal system. “We advise governments, organise sessions on how to include silent voices in decision-making. We are working on a Declaration for Future Generations.” The work ranges from legal to highly practical: keeping water sources clean, research into the Wadden Sea, the impact of AI.
“And strangely enough, that’s when I became very judgemental, too. Why are you still flying? Why are you buying cheap products from China? I started noticing that in myself. These days, I try to stand for what I stand for, while respecting that for others, the penny may not have dropped yet.”
“This simple idea, this regenerative way of thinking, can also be applied to systems and organisations. You have to ask yourself: what is the impact of my decision?”
Concrete examples of generational testing
A striking example of where the penny dropped, and the decision shifted in the right direction, comes from Wales. In Cardiff, plans for a proposed ring road were reconsidered following a generational test. In the end, the ring road was replaced with improved public transport. Because will we still be travelling so much by car in the future? The vision of a cleaner, less car-dependent living environment for future generations became guiding in today’s decision-making.
“In Leiden, a motion was passed requiring a generational test, but it still hasn’t been implemented. You need someone within the municipality who will stand up for it. That’s missing.” It remains dependent on individuals. “There needs to be a voice inside the organisation that is steadfast.”
So why does it work in some places but not in others? “It often comes down to smart system choices,” says Jan. “A tick-box that has to be checked before anyone can break ground.” Yet even that is not enough. Alongside the Rights of Nature movement, the initiative Onboarding Nature emerged, providing private actors with tools to formalise and uphold the voice and role of nature within their governance structures.
“So do you already have a checklist to include future generations?” we ask. Jan laughs. “I asked Indigenous communities the same thing. Of course, they saw it as a very Dutch approach.” Their answer was actually simple. It comes down to: ‘do no harm’, leaving behind what we leave behind in a way that allows the place to recover.
“This simple idea, this regenerative way of thinking, can also be applied to systems and organisations. You have to ask yourself: what is the impact of my decision?” It is about awareness of our sphere of influence. But we operate on autopilot 97% of the time. “It will take quite a lot before regenerative behaviour truly becomes part of this system.”
Where have your rituals gone?
A question from that same Indigenous woman stayed with Jan: “Where have your rituals gone?” She also admitted, somewhat irritably, that she had become allergic to the ‘little dances’ Dutch people copy from rituals in faraway tropical places. What is truly local here? Before the Romans arrived, you must have had rituals of your own, she said. The Netherlands needs to search for a form of ‘re-indigenisation’: rediscovering an original connection with the place where we live.
“Do you know a joel block?” Jan asks. We have to admit we don’t. A joel block is a piece of wood that was brought in from the forest during the annual Yule celebration and burned in the family hearth, a ritual around the winter solstice that remained common until the end of the Middle Ages. The block would burn for ten days, becoming the centre of gathering, reflection and connection with the elements.
“There is still so much to rediscover from our Dutch origins. Things that reconnect us, that have the power to reset us and rewind our autopilot.” Rituals are not preachy, he emphasises. “Rituals are your experience.”
Becoming more human
“An old man once told me: everyone is always trying to become a better person. But actually, we should become more human. How human can you be? What does that require in relation to your place in nature and in relation to others? What do I contribute?” He pauses. “We hardly give thanks for anything anymore, yet much of what we receive is not self-evident, nor without sacrifice.”
“The dream is to facilitate community, contribute to shared processes, and be part of cross-pollination.”
Future Recipes
That observation led Jan to start writing. Together with a 25-year-old co-author, he is working on a book with the working title Future Recipes. “She’s 25, so together we represent different generations and different perspectives.” It will bring together what is already happening, what is still possible, and what you can do from your own position.
“The dream is to facilitate community, contribute to shared processes, and be part of cross-pollination,” says Van de Venis. Between generations, between people and nature, between past and future. Because in the end, it is not only about our kin, our blood relatives, but also our kith: the place, the community, the land we belong to and want to pass on to those who come after us.