Agenda Belgium Ecosystem Services (BEES) – Dutch CoP

Agenda Belgium Ecosystem Services (BEES) – Dutch CoP-ESD meeting
April 22 2014 at Antwerp University
Ecosystem Service Assessments on EU and National Scales: (How) can they be put to practice?
Dear colleagues,
Both in Belgium and in the Netherlands we regularly meet to share our experiences in working with
the ecosystem services (ES) concept and thus to inspire each other with new ideas, amongst others
on how to best implement this fascinating concept in policy and in practice.
In Belgium we meet in the BElgium Ecosystem Services (BEES) community (www.beescommunity.be)
and in the Netherlands in the Community of Practice on ES (CoP-ESD: skbodem.nl/project/43).
Our today’s meeting aims to provide us the opportunity to get to know each other better and explore
if and where we can share our ES experiences as neighbors.
There is at least one ES activity that we share as nations. As EU member states we are committed to
execute action 5 of the Biodiversity Strategy which requires us – with the assistance of the
Commission – to:
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map and assess the state of ecosystems and their services in our national territory by 2014;
assess the economic value of such services; and
promote the integration of these values into accounting and reporting systems at EU and
national level by 2020
Belgium and the Netherlands cooperate in the working group on Mapping and Assessment on
Ecosystems and their Services (MAES http://biodiversity.europa.eu/maes) that was set up at EU-level
to support these obligations. At national level the supporting activities Natuurrapport Vlaanderen
(NARA) and Digitale Atlas Natuurlijk Kapitaal (DANK) were set-up in Belgium and in the Netherlands
respectively.
In the morning part brief talks will further introduce BEES, CoP-ESD, MAES, DANK and NARA. In the
afternoon we want to jointly explore how the outcome of MAES, DANK and NARA can be made of
use to policy practices at especially regional and local scales, e.g. in support of sustainable, regional
development.
We aim at a communication with concrete recommendations from our joint exploration that we than
can offer to the working group MAES as well as to parties engaged in the above mentioned policy
practices.
Program:
9.30
Registration, coffee
09.45: Welcome & goal of today’s meeting Jeroen Panis (Agency Nature & Forest Flemish
Government - BEES) + CoP-ESD NL Simon Moolenaar (SKB) & Jos Brils (DELTARES) + BEES
Hans Keune (Belgian Biodiversity Platform), Sander Jacobs (Research Institute Nature and
Forest) & Nicolas Dendoncker (University of Namur)
10.15: MAES-EU state of affairs Anne Teller (European Commission – DG Environment – MAES
project)
10.30: DANK state of affairs Ton Breure (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment
(RIVM))
10.45: NARA state of affairs Maarten Stevens (Research Institute Nature and Forest - NARA)
11.00: coffee
11.30: Walloon state of affairs Marc Dufrêne (L'Université de Liège - Walloon Region)
11.45: ECOPLAN state of affairs Jan Staes (University of Antwerp)
12.00: Introduction to afternoon breakouts/questions
12.15: lunch + change location
13.45: workshop
15.15: drinks
17.00: end of meeting

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