more4nature - empowering citizens in collaborative environmental compliance assurance via monitoring, reporting and action

Degradation of the environment in terms of pollution of natural resources, biodiversity loss and deforestation are continuing and in many parts of Europe and globally it is even worsening. Although local policies to manage environmental resources are (mostly) in place, environmental compliance assurance efforts within these issues are still lacking in terms of data availability, awareness and action. 

Citizen Science Initiatives (CSIs) are innovative ways of joint data collection and knowledge production that can empower citizens in sustainable natural resource management. However, citizen actions in environmental compliance assurance are often hampered by a lack of capacity and common methodologies, as well as a lack of trust in the data collected. 

The project More4nature will use a socio-technical approach to address the challenges of citizen actions and deepen the role of citizens and communities in collaborative environmental compliance assurance. The project will work to institutionalize Citizen Science Initiatives and enhance their role in so that they can provide relevant and valid data for use in environmental compliance assurance. 

More4nature seeks to trigger transformative change in conservation efforts. MoRe4Nature will strengthen the capacity of existing Citizen Science Initiatives (CSIs) to provide relevant and valid data and understanding the importance of environmental compliance, support collaboration and partnerships among CSIs and authorities to cover data gaps and shape policy monitoring frameworks and develop and test tools to validate data obtained from CSIs. 

To ensure impact beyond the project duration, More4nature will engage 162 existing CSIs and 98 authorities and national agencies in 40 cases in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as selected Living Labs and Fab Labs in Europe. The project team consists of 21 partners led by IHE Delft 

“The core concept of More4nature is collaborative environmental compliance assurance: making citizens part of the solution when ensuring that environmental protection policies are implemented and adhered to,” Uta Wehn, Associate Professor of Water Innovation Studies at IHE Delft and overall Project Coordinator of More4nature said during the kick-off days of the project in Delft in beginning of 2024. More4nature project kicks off at IHE Delft: Citizen science for environmental conservation | IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (un-ihe.org) 

NIVA participates in all Work Packages of the project. We lead Task 1.1. on policy analysis. We are also leading case studies under Zero Pollution (marine plastic littering and use of citizen-generated data for preventing plastics in the ocean) and under Biodiversity Protection (use of citizen-generated data and citizen actions for free-flowing rivers). NIVAs team is an interdisciplinary team consisting of researchers in policy and environmental law, freshwater and marine governance, freshwater ecology, management and innovation. We will draw on previous projects working in the intersection of science, policy and practice related to environmental governance, as well as citizen science specifically.