Source: Maitre-Ekern, E., Karasik, R., Enge, C. G., & Barkved, L. (2024). Initial report on policy obstacles and opportunities for the integration and uptake of citizen generated data and citizen & community-led actions in environmental compliance assurance - more4nature D1.1. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18937471

The more4nature aims to trigger transformative change in efforts regarding zero pollution, biodiversity protection and deforestation prevention by including citizens and communities as key actors in collaborative environmental compliance assurance (ECA). A key element in reversing the trend in environmental degradation is a change in environmental compliance assurance interventions. Citizen science initiatives present innovative ways of joint data and knowledge production and of empowering citizens in sustainable natural resource management. However, barriers to the uptake of citizen generated data (CGD) and citizen & community- led actions (CCLA) in ECA have not been effectively tackled.

The more4nature project uses a socio-technical approach to address these challenges and deepen the role of citizens and communities in ECA by:

  1. strengthening the capacity of existing citizen science initiatives to provide relevant and valid data and understanding the importance of ECA,
  2. fostering and supporting collaboration and partnerships among citizen science initiatives and authorities to cover data gaps and shape policy monitoring frameworks,
  3. developing and testing tools to validate data obtained from citizen science Initiatives, thus contributing to the integration of such data sources in environmental governance and in European Open Science Cloud,
  4. making CGD available as a node in the Green Deal Data Space,
  5. creating synergies between Citizen science initiatives and Living Labs and other initiatives such as Fab Labs, which can help co-design actions as part of green and digital transformations.

The aim of more4nature is to strengthen the role of citizen science in ECA. Thus, the project takes as a starting point that CCLA and CGD can contribute to better compliance with Z/B/D policies as well as serving as drivers for policy change.