Each newsletter, you get to meet one of our 11 partners. This time we present: Martin Weichers from City of Papenburg.
Written by Maxime Rekkers
Who are you?
“I am Martin Weichers and I work as a Climate Adaptation Manager for the City of Papenburg. I started in September 2023, by focusing on the development of our local climate adaptation strategy. Over the past two years, we’ve completed this process and are now moving forwards by implementing the measures outlined in the strategy. My position is project-funded and was recently extended for another three years, which gives me the opportunity to follow through and put the plans into practice.”
Why did you join this project?
“There are many synergies between our climate adaptation strategy and the Green Team project. While developing the strategy, we needed to bring together different departments and use their respective knowledge, so we had something like a Green Team in place. The Interreg project helped us formalise this structure and create a core Green Team that now focuses on implementing the measures.
The timing worked out very well: as our strategy was being finalised, we could immediately start building a dedicated Green Team to carry it forward. It was the best way to ensure that climate adaptation is not just one person’s responsibility, but a shared effort across departments.”
What has been a highlight for you?
“It’s fascinating to see how far other cities in different countries have come in their climate adaptation work. Every partner brings its own expertise, for example, Dutch municipalities have extensive experience in water management, from which we can learn.
I also like sharing new ideas with my own Green Team. Often, they’re very different from how things have been done over the past 20 years, which leads to interesting discussions. More and more colleagues understand the benefits of climate adaptation and start coming up with their own suggestions. It’s no longer just my topic; it’s becoming something we work on together.”
What are you looking forward to?
“At the moment, we’re focusing on two main areas: climate adaptation in industrial sites and in schools and schoolyards.For the schools, we’re preparing a project to make a primary schoolyard more climate-resilient, by greening, shadowing and water storage.
For industrial sites, we recently visited a company owner who contacted us about flooding during heavy rainfall. Together, we looked at the area and discovered that a drainage pipe was only half the planned size — something nobody had realised before. After enlarging it, we hope the flooding problem will be largely solved. We’re also improving maintenance practices, such as mowing the drainage ditches more frequently, so that water can flow more easily.”
When will the Green Team project be a success for Papenburg?
“For me, success means that all the measures from our climate adaptation strategy are well internalized among our local Green Team members and that they see them as part of their daily work.
It will also be a success if the Green Team continues to work together even after the project ends. That would show that climate adaptation has truly become part of how our municipality operates.”