It’s an interesting question to contemplate.
When you really pay attention, you’ll notice how adept we’ve become at tuning out every-day noises: the bell that rings every time a tram passes on a nearby street, the rumbling of cars as they drive by, the whooshing sounds of jet engines from above.
Noise is one of the most pervasive and yet under-acknowledged forms of environmental pollution that we encounter. According to the World Health Organization, more than half of all Europeans face daily exposure to potentially damaging noise levels. Noise pollution increases stress levels and has been linked to a variety of health problems, from insomnia to hypertension. There’s also evidence to suggest that it may impair children’s learning.
In the last decade, the EU has started to take heed of the health hazards of noise and to regulate noise pollution. Back in the 1990s, the Flemish government began to recognize the value that quiet spaces have for the health and well being of its citizens and started working to protect them.
A small municipality in Limburg was even further ahead of the curve. For more than 40 years, volunteers with Werkgroep Ecologie Tessenderlo (WET) have been diligently working to protect and promote the Gerhagen nature reserve.
Gerhagen is a 1000-acre protected area and the so-called groene long (green lung) of Tessenderlo, a municipality located at the tip of the “nose” of Limburg, where Limburg, Antwerp and Flemish Brabant provinces all come together. A 200-hectare section of the reserve was just designated by the Flemish government as the first official stiltegebied, or quiet domain, in Flanders.
How does a place earn such a title? Only after a number of careful measurements. Experts conducted listening tests, measured sound levels and surveyed Gerhagen-area residents and visitors. By all counts, the area was deemed exceptionally quiet and was granted a two-star rating (out of a possible three).
The Flemish government, the Flemish Land Agency, Regional Landscape Lower Kempen, the province of Limburg, the municipality of Tessenderlo and WET have been collaborating to bring public awareness to this designation. Gerhagen now has two special walking paths and an exhibit to get people thinking more critically about sound.
The paths of silence
There are two marked stiltepaden (quiet paths) through Gerhagen, both beginning at the Bosmuseum (Forest Museum). The green route is 3.5 kilometres, and the blue one is six. You can pick up a stilterugsakje (quiet backpack) at the Bosmuseum to help enhance your experience. Included are items like an hourglass, a mat to sit or lay on, cards to help you identify clouds and birds and a book to record your thoughts and feelings.
In April and May, you even can borrow a stethoscope from the museum in order to hear the gushing noises of sap flowing through the birch trees.
A map and pamphlet guide you through the walks. The pretty pine forest is peppered with oak and birch trees, and I was struck by the stillness of the woods and the soft, sandy soil, which made for pleasant walking (and no doubt helps to dampen noise).
If you take the longer route, you can stop and reflect at each of eight designated stilte- en rustplekjes (silence and rest places). My favourites were 3 and 8: the former is an area where you walk along the path blindfolded (guided by a roped railing), and the latter is a wonderfully comfy hammock that is strategically placed near the end of the trail.
As you walk along, what becomes immediately clear is that even the quietest forest is by no means “silent”. I heard the usual forest sounds, like birds chirping and wind rustling through the trees, but also – unavoidable in a small, industrialised country like Belgium – is the faint din of planes and cars. Still, considering the sometimes extreme noise levels in green spaces within cities, it is a particularly peaceful place. For me, getting away to Gerhagen certainly had a calming effect.
The Bosmuseum
WET runs the Bosmuseum at Gerhagen, which features a number of impressive exhibits on the flora and fauna of the area. Most intriguing is the “Van ei tot ei” (From Egg to Egg) collection of birds’ eggs – from the hummingbird to the ostrich – and stuffed birds and mammals. (Don’t worry; they all died of natural causes.) You can also learn about birds’ habitat, migration patterns and the threats they face. Most of the birds featured are native to the area.
The mission of WET is to teach people about nature and to preserve nature for future generations. Volunteers guide monthly walks from the Bosmuseum through Gerhagen based around different topics such as flowers, mushrooms and birds. The Bosmuseum receives between 12,000 and 15,000 visitors each year.
The Bosmuseum hosts a sound booth, a dimly lit room where you can listen to a wide range of sounds: from dogs barking to sirens to conversations and breathing. A chart outside shows you the decibel levels of different sounds.
A WET volunteer told me that the public’s sense of environmental consciousness seems to be growing but that most of the organisation’s membership is over the age of 40. Therefore, the Bosmuseum’s exhibits and activities are often geared towards younger generations and school outreach is one of their big activities. They welcome about 80 school groups per year and have a classroom to facilitate learning.
Just how quiet is “the quietest place in Flanders”? Call us sceptical, but we wanted to measure for ourselves. When we visited Gerhagen, we took a sound pressure level (SPL) metre. The results? They’re not lying – it’s quiet. The loudest area we sampled (on a platform at Gent-Sint-Pieters while a train was approaching and a voice was booming from the public address system) was a whopping 32 times louder than the quietest place in Gerhagen.
A note on decibels:
decibel (dB) = perceptible difference in loudness
dBA = A-weighted decibels, the standard scaling of dB measurements to approximate the frequency response of human hearing
10 dB difference = a doubling or halving of the perceived loudness (so, this being a logarithmic scale, the difference between our lowest measurement in Gerhagen (25 dBA) and the highest measurement in Ghent (75 dBA) is not 3x, as it would be with a linear scale; rather, it’s an increase of 50 dB, or five doublings, or 32x as loud.
Urban sound levels:
60-65 dBA...riding on a tram in Ghent
75 dBA....... ..train platform in Ghent
58 dBA.........on stopped IC train
54-55 dBA....on a moving IC train
Stiltepad sound levels:
30-36 dBA...starting the stiltepad
34 dBA...... ...rope walk (sounds: plane landing nearby, highway, tractor)
35 dBA.........sitting log (sounds: jets overhead, dogs barking in distance, wind through leaves, peeping bird)
32 dBA.........boomwortels (sounds: distant road, doves and other birds. Still tranquil.
25 dBA........near the end of the walk, lowest reading. Very still. Then, a plane takes off...32 dBA
Flanders Today is a 
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