We are interested in how social, ecological and institutional factors interact and how they affect key issues in current natural resource management.
We led a 2024 study which looked at hundreds of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) indicators to examine which ones benefit from input by resource users and non-scientists. Greater involvement of citizens in the GBF would increase societal engagement in international agreements, harness knowledge from those living close to nature to fill data gaps, and enhance local to national decision making based on improved information, leading to better conservation actions.
Our research focuses on participatory, community-based monitoring of social-ecological systems in both land and marine ecosystems. We seek to understand and improve the ability of participatory environmental monitoring, also called Co-Created Citizen Science, to:
- Meet community information needs,
- Enhance effective and socially just decision-making, and
- Strengthen self-determination.
See list of selected publications
How can community observations most directly lead to decision-making and management action? Workshop discussions.
Photo by Michael K. Poulsen.
Access to natural resources is a core component in the lives of resource users. Engagement in resource management and monitoring is therefore important. (BioScience 71: 484, 2021).
Dialogue with decision-makers and other local actors.
Photo by Michael K. Poulsen.
Results from community members’ use of a wildlife harvest calculator informed by their own observations in the field for the Ivittuut muskoxen herd, Greenland (Conservation Science and Practice 2(3), e159, 2020).
Screenshot of the local observations database PISUNA-net, Greenland (https://eloka-arctic.org/pisuna-net/en).
Workshop in Québec City, Québec, Canada
Photo by Michael K. Poulsen.
Resource user involvement in monitoring may lead to ownership of the natural resource management process (BioScience 71: 484, 2021).
Knowledge partners
- UNEP-WCMC
- Nordic Council of Ministers’s Nordic Working Group for Biodiversity
- ECSA
- Foreningen for Skånsomt Kystfiskeri Producent Organisation
- University of Copenhagen
- University of Aarhus
- Danish Institute for International Studies
- Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education
- Ilisimatusarfik – University of Greenland
- Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands / Agricultural University of Iceland
- Qeqertalik Municipality, Greenland
- University of the Faroe Islands
- Jagtforeningen Lonin, Sandoy, Faroe Islands
- Government of Alberta, Canada
- University of Alberta, Canada
- Carleton University, Canada
- University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
- University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA
- IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Netherlands
- Dodoma University, Tanzania
- Dar es Salaam University, Tanzania
- Tanzania Forest Conservation Group
- PINGO’s Forum, Arusha
- Mpingo Conservation, Kilwa, Tanzania
NORDECO, Skindergade 23, DK-1159 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Tel: (+45) 33919030, Email: nordeco@nordeco.dk
