Investments as a lever for sustainable equilibrium between ecology and recreation at the Belgian coast

Nature and tourism: it wasn’t very often a very successful marriage at the European coasts. Like the Spanish ‘costas’, the Flemish coast was buried under concrete. This was of course devastating for the different vulnerable ecosystems and forced policymakers to take action. Not only did many countries start nature restoration projects like the Feydra-project in order to alter this trend. The problems were also tackled at the basis. Since the beginning of the nineties the tourism policy in Flanders did no longer focus just on the classic recipe of sun, sea and sand. Tourists also discovered the beauty of the polder-complex, tourists enjoyed bicycle trails,… This paper presents the evolution of nature and tourism ‘from threat toward opportunity’ / ‘from conflict to dialogue’ and vice versa. We will focus on four case studies spread over 15 years, showing the positive evolution of integrating rather than tolerating visitors in European Natura 2000-areas