[AlecSchueler]

You've misunderstood me. Cutting down this tree in the UK also needs permission. The question is only whether the landowner in question can or would be tied to the crime and punished.

This is also an issue in the NL. I grew up in the UK but I've lived the most significant years of my life in the NL so I feel like I can speak a bit to both cases. If something happens in the countryside with noone around to see there's very little that can be done, there's a certain impunity or a security through obscurity that exists outside of cities.

And I know that this is HN and what I'm about to say doesn't quite meet general etiquette rules here, but the idea that farmers are somehow more controlled in the NL than elsewhere is laughable when the literal Farmers Party is one of the main political forces in the country.

[jacquesm]

> And I know that this is HN and what I'm about to say doesn't quite meet general etiquette rules here, but the idea that farmers are somehow more controlled in the NL than elsewhere is laughable when the literal Farmers Party is one of the main political forces in the country.

No disagreement on that one, we're out of control to put it mildly. The next elections (which are soon) will be 'interesting' for all the wrong reasons.