Nature Report 2016

Ecosystem Services form a key pillar of the European Biodiversity Strategy in addition to the Natura 2000 network. Moreover, as well as supporting nature policy, they are also being used to make Europe a sustainable and competitive region by 2020.

The Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) wishes to contribute actively to the achievement of these goals. This Nature Report, ‘Working with Nature’, forms the second part of the ecosystem assessment for Flanders. With this assessment, we aim to lay the foundations for a policy that takes proper account of the conservation and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

• In the first part we performed a comprehensive analysis of the state and trends of ecosystem services in Flanders.
• In the second part, we aim to provide the tools for getting started with ecosystem services.

‘Working with Nature’ is not just INBO’s work. It is the product of close cooperation with different partners. These partners are very diverse: they are citizens, farmers, researchers and policymakers working in a wide range of policy and knowledge areas. We plan to continue making maximum use of this varied collaboration in the next phase of the assessment.