We were delighted to welcome a delegation from DG Environment Directorate F (Green Diplomacy & Multilateralism) of the European Commission to showcase the work of speciesID.be,  Belgium’s centre of excellence for species identification.

The visit included presentations on the two operational service units of speciesID.be:

BopCo: using morphology and DNA analysis to identify species of policy concern, from CITES enforcement to biosecurity and food fraud.

ENFORCE: applying forensic wood science to combat illegal timber trade, in direct support of CITES and the EU Deforestation Regulation.

And because science is best experienced first-hand, we took our guests behind the scenes to visit

• the extensive wood reference collection at the AfricaMuseum
• the wood biology lab used by ENFORCE
• the biobank and molecular lab used by BopCo

SpeciesID.be is proud to support the enforcement of EU environmental legislation and we look forward to continued exchanges between science and policy.

SpeciesID.be is a joint initiative of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and the Royal Museum for Central Africa, funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO).