Bringing the Index for Biodiversity Potential (IBP) to Belgium
By Yannick De Win
One of the main ambitions within the INFORMA project is to provide clear insights from science to develop Sustainable Forest Management practices that enhance carbon sequestration while also protecting biodiversity. Luckily, often we can rely on the work of other scientists and don’t have to invent new tools from scratch.
In 2008 two French scientists, Laurent Larrieu and Pierre Gonin, developed a tool to help forest managers to include biodiversity conservation into their daily work – the Index for Biodiversity Potential (IBP). Instead of a full field observation of all species in a forest stand, IBP relies on 10 factors that describe the potential of forest stands to offer sufficient habitats and resources. These factors include site-specific conditions that are more or less fixed, but also structural stand features which can be influenced by forest management decisions. What started in France gradually expanded and now the IBP is adopted in many countries in Europe. Given our goals in INFORMA, naturally IBP caught our attention.
INFORMA facilitating the introduction of the IBP
Already before the INFORMA project launched, there had been contact between the creators of the IBP and the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) in Flanders to develop an IBP version adapted to the local context. Thanks to the resources provided by the INFORMA project, in 2024, the plans finally became reality, and the first steps were taken.
It did not take long to realise that this new IBP version should not only fit Flanders but comprise forest conditions in the whole Benelux area consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Soon discussions started between the creators, INBO, the University of Liège, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Nature and Forest Agency of Luxemburg (ANF) to decide how the European level descriptions for use should be adapted to the forest conditions in the Benelux. In 2025 the IBP-Benelux was born.
INBO was not the only project partner in Belgium that showed interest in the IBP. Also in 2024, a master thesis started during which the IBP was applied for the first time in the Flemish context. Luckily, INBO and KU Leuven were able to jointly supervise the thesis work from an early stage, so new protocol developments could be included and immediately tested in the field. These IBP surveys were not performed randomly but made use of the patches from the INFORMA Management Platform at the Brabantse Wouden. This resulted in a very promising dataset and, even after the master thesis ended, INBO and KU Leuven decided to keep working together to further valorize this work. Thanks to the applied sampling design, we were able to look for differences in IBP-scores between managed and unmanaged forests, where many confounding factors could largely be neglected. This interesting work has been turned into a manuscript for a scientific publication which is currently under review at Annals of Forest Science.
Showcasing the tool
Our work also opened many doors and gave us the chance to introduce the IBP and the INFORMA project at multiple occasions. We were present at the Annual Meeting of the British Ecological Society in December 2025, where we presented a poster. We were invited to give a presentation for the International Committee of Experts on the IBP. Our findings were included in the INFORMA training events organized at the Brabantse Wouden. Most recently, we were invited to present during a meeting of the Forest Managers Platform in Flanders. Who knows what the future holds for the IBP in Belgium beyond INFORMA’s lifespan?
