Marc Peeters, Coordinator Education and Public Awareness at the Belgian National Focal Point to the CBD

1. What's your job? 
I'm working as biodiversity & communication expert at the Belgian National Focal Point (NFP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, based at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS).

2. What are the main opportunities and challenges in your work? 
When I started working at the NFP, biodiversity was a mainly ignored discipline, even by scientists and nature institutions. 22 years later we have made lots of progress in making different target groups aware of the importance of biodiversity. Together with the growing number of other biodiversity actors we should closely work together to make the preservation of biodiversity a mainstream focus throughout all sectors of our country and planet.

3. What are your wishes for biodiversity in the future?
I hope that we will be able to reverse the decline of biodiversity, and make it thriving again. Not only through the joint work of all biodiversity actors, decision-makers, public at large, companies, etc. but also through out-of-the-box thinking leading to numerous inspiring and innovative projects connecting nature, culture, care & wellbeing, such as in a new personal project: EcoViva.be.