Cornelis Niels van den Berge (born December 28, 1984 in Bad Honnef

Bad Honnef

Bad Honnef is a spa town in Germany near Bonn in the Rhein-Sieg district, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the border of the neighbouring state Rhineland-Palatinate...

) is a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 former politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

. As a member of GreenLeft

GreenLeft

GreenLeft is a green political party operating in the Netherlands.GreenLeft was formed on 1 March 1989 as a merger of four left-wing political parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and the Evangelical People's Party...

 (GroenLinks) he was a temporary MP from January 12 till March 11, 2011, replacing Mariko Peters

Mariko Peters

Mariko Peters is a Dutch politician and former civil servant and lawyer. She has been an MP since November 30, 2006...

, who was on maternity leave. He focused on matters of the Dutch defense, the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

, nature

Nature

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...

 and agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

.

Van den Berge grew up in Tholen

Tholen

Tholen is a municipality in the southwest of the Netherlands. The municipality of Tholen has lent its name from the town of Tholen, which is the largest population center in the municipality....

 and studied law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 at Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University Nijmegen is a public university with a strong focus on research in Nijmegen, the Netherlands...

 and forest

Forestry

Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

 and nature conservation

Conservation movement

The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including animal, fungus and plant species as well as their habitat for the future....

 at Wageningen University

Wageningen University

Wageningen University and Research Centre is a Dutch public university in Wageningen, The Netherlands. It consists of Wageningen University, the Van Hall-Larenstein School of Higher Professional Education, and the former agricultural research institutes of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture...

, but finished neither of them. He was a member of the municipal council

Municipal council

A municipal council is the local government of a municipality. Specifically the term can refer to the institutions of various countries that can be translated by this term...

 of Wageningen

Wageningen

' is a municipality and a historical town in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specializes in life sciences. The city has 37,414 inhabitants , of which many thousands are students...

from 2004 to 2007.