12 - NORDECO

Nordisk Fond for Miljø og Udvikling (NORDECO) is registered in Greenland/Denmark as a social enterprise (SME) with headquarters in Copenhagen. NORDECO has 10 staff members and an annual turnover of EUR 1.5M.

NORDECO is an inter-disciplinary organization aimed at developing and applying natural and social science to real-world development challenges. NORDECO develops tools and methods, carries out research, connects persons and institutions, builds capacity, and supports interventions on the ground. Founded in 1991, NORDECO has the declared goal of supporting local, innovative conservation and development initiatives in remote communities. 

Globally, NORDECO has spearheaded the development of bottom-up approaches to natural resource monitoring and management, where local people or local government staff are directly involved in data collection and interpretation, and where monitoring is linked to the decisions of local people, using methods that are simple, cheap and require few resources. Such approaches can help generate transparency, accountability and local ownership in sustainable natural resource management initiatives.

NORDECO is coordinating the international Monitoring Matters Network, which involves researchers and practitioners from universities, community-based and non-governmental organizations, and government agencies (www.monitoringmatters.org). The research publications by NORDECO on community-based observing systems are among the most cited in their field and have contributed to changes in national and international policies. 

NORDECO is a member of the University of the Arctic and of the Civil Society Organisation Network of the Global Environment Facility, a volunteer structure of GEF-accredited organisations. NORDECOs work is highly interdisciplinary with scholars from sociology, development studies, anthropology, forestry and ecology. 

Role in the project

NORDECO will lead WP4 on community-based observing programs. In addition, NORDECO will contribute to showcase ‘real-world’ examples of the benefits of cross-fertilizing indigenous, local and scientific observation systems and connecting with decision-makers in WP6. NORDECO will also assist with outreach and competence-building in WP7. NORDECOs Senior Ecologist Finn Danielsen will be theme leader for community-based systems.