Monitoring is an essential tool to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of nature management for both policy makers and local managers. This manual contains the concept and guidelines for the monitoring of the nature management in the Flanders’ nature reserves with practical instructions for the planning and execution of future monitoring projects. The final goal is to come to a control system for the support and steering of the policy making and management of nature reserves. This consists of the set-up of a standardised efficient and achievable methodology for the gathering of relevant ecological data. Immediately linked herewith we prescribe a translation of these ecological data that guarantee an effective interpretation in the form of a “distance-to-target” measure. This will allow to verify if the assigned targeted nature types are indeed obtained with the currently applied management techniques and to signal if there are developments that demand for a reconsideration of policy making. The data coming forth from this monitoring are not only valuable to sustain policy making, but should also offer possibilities to evaluate the management practices on a more local level and allow for steering. Next to the preparation of a concept and methodology, this project also included a pilot study. The pilot study not only produced first data for an initial analysis, but also contributed to the evaluation and adaptation of the field protocols which were designed according to the monitoring concept. This task partly consisted of elaborating the monitoring schemes, the coordination and guidance of research agencies during fieldwork, data gathering and storage. An initial analysis and interpretation of the data can be found in another report within this series (De Cock et al. 2008a). The set of nature reserves and measuring plots used for this pilot study form the start for the elaboration of a true monitoring network. The first part of this report deals with the monitoring approach in which extra attention goes to ...