This project aims to introduce the concept of Ecosystem Services to a broad range of policy makers and organizations.  The ecosystem services approach was used to determine EU-conservation goals for the Scheldt estuary, and was the basis for the cost-benefit analysis of the SIGMA-plan, which integrates flood protection, accessibility and ecology in the Scheldt estuary. Despite these examples, the concept of ecosystem services is not well known within the Flemish context. In fact, the concept has potential to provide a broader societal support to nature conservation and restoration in Flanders. The ecosystem services concept clarifies that nature conservation and restoration are no marginal phenomena with a limited societal relevance, but that further degradation of natural capital will demand more investments to compensate for the loss in ecosystem services, which has an economical impact on society as a whole.

The evaluation and description of ecosystem services allows to make fact-based choices to obtain a sustainable development. To introduce this approach in Flanders, more knowledge and insight into ecosystem services is urgently needed on a Flemish scale. This project is the first step in this introduction.

The study consists of two parts:

Part one is a general analysis on what ecosystem services are important in Flanders, and what their state is. This will be a general analysis with a spatial component.

Part two will analyse a existing conservation or restoration projects and emphasize how the concept of ecosystem service can improve the planning as well as communication on restoration projects, and how the project can be used to promote the ecosystem service concept.