RePlanet: the 'grassroots' youth movement founded by a 76-year old Dutch agronomics hotshot
Kofi Anan became one of his friends while working at UN
RePlanet’s Ia Aanstoot in a campaign video.
Young climate activists who want to have more nuclear power plants, and therefore declare war against Greenpeace: it was world news, by the new NGO RePlanet. At their heart is 18-year-old Ia Aanstoot from Sweden; she still participated in Greta Thunberg's climate strikes. But the professor from Drenthe who founded RePlanet is no longer 18, but as old as the United Nations logo: dating from late 1946.
Founder Rudy Rabbinge at the UN later became friends with top executive Kofi Annan when he was working as a Dutch diplomat. The agronomy professor knew a great deal about fertilisers and the innovation of cultivation methods, sharing that knowledge enabled huge growth in agricultural production worldwide.
Rabbinge was among the top Dutch scientists. He was also a former board member of Wageningen University. And now, long after retirement, he is the one who signed the first deeds of 'non-profit association' RePlanet in Gentbrugge in Flanders in autumn 2022. RePlanet claims to be an umbrella organisation for 'grassroots' organisations, movements that have blossomed from within society. But it is not.