Highlights and pictures of the symposium

Belgium celebrated the International Day for Biological Diversity 2002 by organising a one-day symposium on "biodiversity and sustainable development in Belgium". The symposium evaluated the implementation in Belgium of engagements taken at Rio and underlined the importance of biological diversity for sustainable development.

The first part of the symposium presented existing instruments and actions taken for the conservation of biological diversity at EU and Belgian level. The European Commission presented its Biodiversity Strategy and the Biodiversity Action Plans (natural resources, agriculture, fisheries and development cooperation) that were developed in 2001 as a way to implement the strategy. The representatives of the Belgian federal and regional governments reminded the audience of the current policy for biodiversity in their respective spheres of competence.

The second part of the symposium started with an overview of the status of biodiversity in Belgium and ended with the presentation of case studies illustrating experiences of biodiversity integration in sectoral policies. These included examples for forests, natural parks, export credit agencies, military domains, maritime transport, inland water restoration projects and genetic resources.

Finally, the Belgian representative to the Youth Conference of the 6th COP meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity presented the results of the discussions of the Youth Conference.

Foreign guest speakers were invited to present successful experiences in neighbouring countries (France and UK). Prof. Ollagnon, from France, highlighted the need for communication and participative apThe UK presentation, by Mr J. Robbins (DEFRA) and Dr Chris Spray (Northumbrian Water Limited) targeted the innovative subject, 'Business and biodiversity' and was highly appreciated by the public.proaches in order to succeed in conservation projects.

Mr Y. Ylieff, Government Commissioner for Scientific Research, welcomed the participants and made the opening speech, while Mrs M. Aelvoet, Minister for Consumer interests, Health, Environment and Animal Welfare chaired the question time and summarised the main ideas presented during the meeting.

The symposium was organised by the Federal Minister for the Environment, the Federal State Commissioner for Scientific Research and the CBD National Focal Point. It was held at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, in Brussels.

Participation was open to all, and more than 200 people attended the event. The audience was mostly composed of professionals of various sectors (nature conservation, agriculture, forestry, trade, etc.) and from a wide range of backgrounds (administrations, universities, NGOs, private sector, etc.).

A poster session with more than 50 poster presentations took place during the coffee breaks and at lunchtime. This session was highly successful, drawing a wide audience and enabling numerous contacts between participants.