Exchanging knowledge and experience is some important added value when participating in European projects. It can inspire one another to find solutions. After all the surrounding countries are mainly facing the same challenges as we are. At our last partner meeting, we met Rob Horsley of Rivers Trust, coordinator of the LIFE IP Natural Course project.
Rob showed us some interesting project results. For example, through locally valued pearl mussels, they were able to motivate the local community to make some extra effort to achieve a very good ecological condition in the ‘River Irt’. Indeed, without this extra effort, the highly vulnerable mussels are in danger of extinction. He also gave some tips on how to raise private capital to achieve flood management goals, using ‘The Wyre Natural Flood Management’ plan as an example.
We took Rob through numerous actions by the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) at LIFE Belini in the IJse valley, along with project managers Renaud Bocquet and Katia Van Tichelen. Here, there has been a recent commitment to depaving in residential areas and the IJse was opened up along the Castle pond. Thanks to VLM, we were also able to make some interesting contacts with the Interreg Europe project NBS4LOCAL (Nature-based Solutions for Local) in the process. The goal of this project is to effectively integrate nature-based solutions into policy instruments, aimed at integration by local governments.
In the afternoon, we visited some site actions by our partner Brussels Environment, with some expert explanations from Benjamin Thiébaux and Anna Roose. We saw, for example, how at Boulevard Paepsem in Anderlecht, about 1 km of banks of the Senne had been naturally landscaped. Finally, we visited the nearby temporary flood plain, which proved its worth with the November rains.
On the second day, other partners in Belini (SPW, CR Senne, Province of Flemish Brabant) showed their progress as part of the biennial partner meeting. We came to the conclusion that the final spurt is not to be underestimated and that we can turn to Natural Course for advice now as well.
