The Brussels government announced on Friday its decision to protect 25% of the Brussels-Capital Region's biodiversity by 2030, in response to the commitments made at the COP 15 Biodiversity conference held last year in Montreal (Canada).
Today, 14.7% of Brussels territory is already protected. This includes nature reserves and Natura2000 sites.
"Protecting 25% of the territory by 2030 will include new types of areas, representing a leap of more than 10% of the territory and 70% of the areas that were already protected. We will go from 2,373 hectares of land protected today to some 4,206 hectares of land protected by 2030", explained Minister-President Rudi Vervoort (PS) and the Minister for the Environment Alain Maron (Ecolo).
Protection of these areas could take various forms. It could involve changing their allocation in the Regional Land Use Plan (PRAS) or providing existing green spaces with more proactive ecological management plans, or protecting rare and valuable species present in certain areas over the long term.
The aim is not to create nature reserves that are inaccessible to the public but rather to protect, enhance and improve biodiversity where it exists, whether on wasteland or in urban areas.
Vervoort and Maron say this commitment to biodiversity will take the form of the proactive protection and enhancement of biodiversity on a large part of public land reserves such as Josaphat in Schaerbeek, Keyenbempt in Uccle, Wiels in Forest, Meylemeersch in Anderlecht and Schaerbeek Formation.
