After a quarter of a century and 61 issues, the very last edition of the VLIZ magazine De Grote Rede was published in 2025. Over the past 25 years, the magazine built up a treasure trove of information: stories, features, dossiers, facts and figures, anecdotes, testimonies and original knowledge. All told, it amounts to almost two thousand pages of reading pleasure, devised by more than a hundred editorial team members, written by hundreds of authors, and read, sought after and devoured by more than ten thousand readers.
In the final issue, editor-in-chief Jan Seys looked back on 25 years of De Grote Rede: from its early beginnings to today, with an overview of what the magazine has helped to set in motion, and an extensive note of thanks to everyone who made the publication possible for so long. In another main feature, the magazine explored the Sea Level Station Monitoring Facility, a unique data system that provides real-time sea-level information from 1,200 locations worldwide, a product of VLIZ and IOC-UNESCO. Wouter Faveyts also answered the question of how the Zwin nature reserve has changed five years after the opening through the International Dyke and the expansion of the area. Special attention was also given to the ‘Words from the Sea’ column, in which emeritus professor Magda Devos traced the origins of Coastal West Flemish.
All 61 issues will remain available at www.vliz.be/groterede. Anyone who would like to keep receiving thought-provoking and engaging sea-related content can turn to the online VLIZ Testerep magazine. This free magazine is emailed out monthly and remains permanently available on the website. And just like sandbanks and channels – De Grote Rede is a depth, Testerep a vanished peninsula off the coast of Ostend – things are always changing or even disappearing altogether. In that sense, De Grote Rede flows almost seamlessly into the online Testerep magazine.
