VITO member of IUCN

Proud member of IUCN in Belgium

We are proud to announce that VITO has recently become a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The Belgian Biodiversity Platform hosts the IUCN Belgian National Focal Point.

As contributor to the theme sustainable land use, VITO Remote Sensing has more than twenty years of experience in transforming raw earth observation data into objective consumable information. Remote Sensing has grown to a powerful tool in search of true information about our environment, society and economy, and has become a key element in reaching a sustainable balance on our planet. Our team of experts provide tools to influence and assist societies to ensure the use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.

Some available tools that can contribute to IUCN’s mission are the Elastic Land Cover mapping and Essential Biodiversity/Ecosystem Variables.
Next to these services, we are also setting up a platform to protect ecosystem services through Natural Capital Accounting in collaboration with IUCN PACO. 

For information on our services to IUCN you can contact Bruno Smets, R&D Project Manager Land Use / Land Cover and Vegetation, or check his presentation given during the UNECE seminar in Geneva last year. Bruno demonstrated the experimental ecosystem accounting system, setup by integrating the SEEA-EEA ENCA-QSP methodology and Copernicus data, with the participating countries of Easter Europe, the Caucasus & Central Asia!