Federal government

At the federal level, strategic actions for biodiversity are detailed in the Federal Plans for Sustainable Development. Action 18 of the federal plan for 2004-2008 (FPSD2) targets the protection of biodiversity through the integration of biodiversity concerns into federal decision-making and actions 19 and 20 deal with forests and marine waters. The plan was extended until the adoption of the next plan. A new Federal Plan for Sustainable Development for 5 years is being prepared, which will include the federal long term vision for sustainable development adopted in 2013 by the government, and will be based on the outcomes of the federal reports on sustainable development.

Some specific measures and actions related to biodiversity and ecosystem services should be included. A pre-project is in preparation and must be further discussed in May 2014.

The FPSD2 determines the measures to be taken at the federal level to promote sustainable development. It is characterized by a normative and indicative planning but is not mandatory. The Plan therefore has no regulatory power, but provides guidelines for the policy that the government intends to implement.

The follow-up of 78 indicators measuring the evolution of Belgium towards sustainable development is available on http://www.indicators.be/en. It includes two indicators related to the biological diversity: population of farmland birds, fish stocks: number inside precautionary values.

The first two federal sustainable development plans (2000-2004; 2004-2008) contain two objectives (intellectual property rights, fight against biopiratery) and six measures devoted to the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources, including four already executed and two in preparation. The executed ones are the responsibility of the federal government and / or applied locally (e.g. Projects of development cooperation). However preventive measures and measures to influence international bodies are in preparation and are also more difficult to execute.

Action 18 of FPSD2 foresees the integration of biodiversity issues into four key sectors: transport, the economy, development cooperation and research. A specific action plan 2009-2013 for the integration of biodiversity in those four federal key sectors has therefore been developed to put Action 18 into practice. The Federal plan for sectoral integration of Biodiversity (2009-2013) has been approved on 27 November 2009 by the Council of Ministers upon proposal from the Minister of Climate and Energy. For each action, the plan identifies the responsible actor for implementation, a calendar of implementation as well as budget necessary for implementation. A mid-term evaluation was conducted in 2011 and the final evaluation will be conducted in 2014