The issue seems to be that there is not much activity going on the Dutch local board, be it due to awareness of the forum, size of crypto community, lack of merit incentive, lack of good topics, or a combination of all.
There's a more obvious explanation:
De verklaring is volgens mij niet ver te zoeken: wij Nederlandstaligen zijn allen vlotjes meertalig en kunnen dus zonder probleem deelnemen aan de anderstalige threads, zonder al te veel op ons "eigen" Nederlandstalige forum te moeten rondzwermen.
Short summary in English: we Dutch speakers easily join threads in other languages (mainly English), so we don't have to stick to the Dutch board.
The moderator/admin will set a sub merit system to allow only users that reach the least certain amount of merit to be qualified to join in the local board.
That would mean a new user who doesn't speak English can't post anywhere, and thus can't earn Merit either.