"Ecosystem services" are the services, gains people obtain from nature. For Flanders this is a quite new concept, nevertheless it has huge potentials for nature conservation. Nature conservation is still too much approached as something with relative low social importance. Describing and evaluating Ecosystem services is a good starting point for sustainable development. To introduce this concept in Flanders there is an urgent need for more knowledge about Ecosystem services and which are their possibilities. This project aims to be a starting point for a ecosystem service based approach. The study consists of two parts: The first part wants to give an overview of the current status of ecosystem services and their future possibilities. We will give a global introduction as well as a spatial overview (maps). In the second part we want to show the possibilities of the ecosystem service concept in some (5) concrete projects.