In 1997 only 1022ha of the remaining 3800ha of coastal dunes was owned by the Flemish Region. The other 2778ha were mostly private property of real estate development firms, large landowners, individuals and, to a lesser degree, public owned by water collection companies, the Ministry of Defence and a couple of municipalities. The then public owned dunes of the Flemish Region were divided as follows among the different administrations of the Ministry of the Flemish Community: 522ha under competence of the Nature Division, 350ha under that of the Waterways and Coast Division and 150ha under that of the Forestry Division. Most of the areas owned by the Nature Division were already purchased between 1956 and 1990. Lack of personnel, funds and strategic perspective prevented the Flemish Region to pursue an active policy of land purchase along the coast. In 1996 an 'Acquisition Plan for the Coastal Dunes' was drawn up by the Group for Applied Ecology of the University of Antwerp under the supervision of the Nature Division. Parliamentary initiatives, following a political debate organised in the frame of the Life nature project 'ICCI', led to the creation of an 'instrument for the acquisition of coastal dunes' by decision of the Flemish government of 3 February 1998. Since 1998 the 'Instrument for the acquisition of coastal dunes' consists of two members of staff, that were added to the Nature Division, and a special article on the budget of the Flemish government. This budgetary article received an initial annual endowment of EUR 1,735,255 in 1998, EUR 3,222,616 in 1999 and EUR 4,462,083 for each year between 2000 and 2004. That initial endowment has been reduced to EUR 2,546,000 in 2005. A weakness in this financing system is that the possibly annually remaining budget cannot be transferred to the budget of the next year, so that no strategic fund can be built up. The active prospecting by the staff of the Acquisition Instrument has allowed the Nature Division to purchase 480ha of dunes between 1998 and 2004. ...