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Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#81

Post by sjrd »

smnrchrds wrote: post #45
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaah I was going to post that :D! It stars one of my favorite comedic actors, Benoît Poelvoorde who is belgian. I'd encourage anyone with a taste for foreign films to check out "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in english) another great movie of his (features lots of violence and serious themes, not a family movie).

> Benoît Poelvoorde It looks like a very French first name and a very Dutch last name. Is that common in Belgium? Is there a significant overlap between the linguistic communities of Belgium?

Those combinations are indeed quite common in Belgium. Another example: myself :-p (Sébastien Doeraene).

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#82

Post by OldHand2018 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #43

Borders are shifting all the time based on how the water flows: [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_border_r... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_river_borders_of_U.S._...

Yes, but in some of those cases, the borders have been set while the water hasn’t.

Like this hilarity: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.1205633,-89.1155927,15z

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#83

Post by yalogin »

It looks like the farmer's land spreads across the border. How is that possible? Or at the very least his land goes all the way to the border line. Either way, in today's age when the line can digitally recorded, why do we need the stone? Both countries know where the line goes through. Could they not just ignore that one stone and let the farmer do his work? I was hoping they would just ignore it, instead I see that he has to put it back, else face criminal charges too.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#84

Post by capableweb »

wincy wrote: post #54

Wow, as a US citizen looking at the France/Belgium border [0] I can’t imagine what it’d be like for a disagreement with your next door neighbor to become an international incident. I suppose it’s probably just no big deal. [0] https://goo.gl/maps/cPbAY3DxQNhUy2SZ9

Most of the people in Europe are war-weary since wars have been had in their front-yard, as compared to some other countries who only fight on foreign soil but still seem aggressive. So I would think it's easier to keep peace with your neighbors.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#85

Post by stinos »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #55

Sounds like it was on purpose, not an accident, since the stone marker of the border was always in his tractor's path.

Almost definitely on purpose. Not sure if this is limited to Belgium, but these days it's like the national sport for almost all farmers in my neighbourhood to just take a bit of land extra every year. A nearby road (well, path) used to be about 4m wide 10 years ago. Now only 1.5m is left untouched, the rest is now farmland. It is likely a sign of much bigger problems (food pricing, for one), but also an extra pressure on the few nature which is left in between the fields, not ideal when it comes to erosion, and so on.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#86

Post by bigmattystyles »

Bayart wrote: post #9

We shall retaliate by symbolically pouring beer into the gutter and stepping on fried potato chips in front of the Belgian embassy. (For the uninitiated https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/stabbing-oranges-an... )

But you’ve bought the beer and fries.

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#87

Post by NelsonMinar »

g_p wrote: post #67
leokennis wrote: post #4

This made me wonder...are (most) of the (undisputed) borders of the world actually stored somewhere? Or are some stones and posts still the "official" borders?

In the UK (technically Great Britain in this context) at least, there is an open dataset available from the national mapping authority (Ordnance Survey), which is called boundary lines. It contains all of the different boundary lines and borders of local authorities, parliamentary constituencies, regions, nations etc. This is all geo referenced against the OSGB coordinate system. I could see interesting challenges in…

Are those boundary lines the actual legal international definition of the borders? Or is it just some convenient representation close enough for ordinary uses?

You'd think location via GPS or similar framework was easy but it's not nearly as easy as you'd think. Among other things, the land is moving. Both continental plates and then also local features like river beds. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TX--Fku9NQ

Re: Belgian farmer accidentally moves French border

#90

Post by jerf »

aetherspawn wrote: post #7

A neighbor once moved the pegs marking our block a few meters so that he could move (and claim) the neutral strip. The most irritating thing, is that he more or less got away with it because he was old and persistent. In fact, he gradually built infrastructure on it, despite hundreds of complaints to the local council and authorities. In the end the council couldn't come up with a good way to settle the dispute, so t…

From what I've seen of several such issues in the US, this is not legal advice, but if it ever happens to you, you are well advised to A: hire out a surveyer or do whatever it takes to be absolutely sure you are correct before proceeding down this list B: issue notice to all the correct locations (to the violator and the relevant boards in charge of the lines) and then C: after a suitable, but not too long period of time, take concrete action to remove the offending things. Hire a lawyer somewhere in the mix to be sure you're not violating any other local laws. (I especially don't know what you should do with the "offending things", e.g., can you take them yourself? Do you have to throw them back on the property line side? What if this involves a certain amount of demolition? I don't know.)

I've seen a number of people in my extended social circles do varying combinations of A and B, but still eventually losing because of a failure to do C, because they don't want to be confrontational or whatever.

(I am specifying "in the US" because I'm fairly sure this is related to common law. Countries operating under other traditions may not see this effect. However in common law, there's a certain element of having to be able to "defend" your property in order for it to be yours.)

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