This document summarizes the work of Dodo, a Finnish environmental NGO focused on urban environments. Dodo promotes global environmental thinking and citizen-based action in cities. It establishes urban farming projects, organizes festivals and workshops, and does urban planning and development work. Dodo also partners with communities in Africa on projects like combating desertification, empowering women, and supporting sustainable livelihoods through activities like beekeeping and soap making. Dodo encourages positive, solutions-focused environmental action through volunteerism and sharing ideas globally.

1. A Finnish environmental NGO
working in urban environments –
example of Dodo
Titta Lassila
August 19, 2013
Helsinki Summer School
Ecology and management of urban green space

2. Why an urban NGO?
• Majority of people live in cities; 50-50 situation was reached
in 2008
– Finland 30 % in 1950  70 % in 2030
• Cities are getting bigger; in 1975 3 megacities of 10 million or
more inhabitants, by 2025 there will be 27 (21 in the
developing world)
• Urban people are increasingly detached from the natural
environment and the sources of food, energy, raw
materials,…or are they?
• Cities are not ecological bubbles!
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/aug/18/percentage-population-living-cities

3. “ City dwellers have smaller carbon
footprints, study finds
Greater use of public transport and denser housing make
urbanites more eco-friendly than their rural counterparts”
"Tokyo has considerably lower emissions per person than
either Beijing or Shanghai and this shows clearly that
prosperity does not lead inevitably to greater emissions,"
said report author David Dodman. "Well-designed and
well-governed cities can combine high living standards with
much lower greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwellers-smaller-carbon-
footprints?guni=Data:in%20body%20link
http://www.iied.org/ IIED

4. Urban green space?
http://mashable.com/2013/

5. Dodo – A Progressive Finnish
environmental NGO
• Established 1995
• Promotes global environmental
thinking and citizen-based action
• Wide perspective to environmental
issues
• Urban point of view: individuality &
communality
• Open sharing of ideas and willingness
to test any possible solutions – with a
permission to fail
• Avoiding expert talk; everyone’s
entitled to understand and contribute
to the discourse
• strongly voluntary-based

6. Dodo guidelines
• Environmental problems will be solved in cities that are
vibrant and tolerant.
• Positive thinking leads further. Therefore we don’t condemn,
instead we encourage.
• Dodo offers new opportunities for different kinds of people.
One does not need to be an expert in order to be able to
participate and be part of the solution.
• Anyone can make a difference in many
ways: with a fork or a bicycle, in a blog
or at a workshop.
• Even voluntary work can be done
professionally and impressively!

7. What DO we DO?
• Megapolis – urban festival (until 2012)
• Urban planning
• Urban farming
• Development cooperation
• Workshops, discussions, environmental
education, excursions

8. Ideas rising into action
Lumituuli Oy
Demos Helsinki

9. Urban planning
“Cities have the
capability of
providing something
for everybody, only
because, and only
when, they are
created by
everybody.”
― Jane Jacobs, The Death and
Life of Great American Cities

10. This is OUR city
- and us means
everyone

11. “Copenhagen has
no cyclists.
Copenhagen has
ordinary citizens
who ride bikes.”
Bianca Hermansen,
urban designer
http://dodo.org/dodoilu/uutiset/copen
hagen-has-no-cyclists-copenhagen-has-
ordinary-citizens-who-ride-bikes

12. Urban farming
• A great success since 2009: you CAN grow your own food in a city!

13. Dodo’s urban farming 2009

14. One year later…

16. Creating ones own urban green space - Kalasatama 2010

17. Kalasatama, July 2010

18. Copenhagen 2013

19. http://satokartta.net/

20. 2011: Urban farming centre Kääntöpöytä / Turntable
Roundhouse in
Pasila

21. The Plan
http://vimeo.com/50821564

22. The Plan

23. 2013: Urban Housing Fair
30 % of our carbon
footprint comes from
housing; mainly the
square meters we
occupy
Not the size but the
function
Think outside your
apartment

24. http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/07/25/10-amazing-tiny-houses-in-japan-a-photo-tour/

25. From local to global – development
cooperation in Africa
• Sinsibere in Mali: combating
desertification & empowering women
- creating alternative sources of income
to replace woodcutting, such as soap
fabrication and gardening
- establishment of a women’s
cooperative, supporting the
improvement and marketing of local
products
- cooperative center for education &
production
- development of solar energy

26. Association support
Vegetable planting
Adult literacy training
Beekeeping
• Tany maitso in Madagascar: forest
conservation & sustainable rural
livelihoods
supporting alternative ways of income for
people living around protected areas

27. Think urban!
“Zimbabwe’s climate change strategy should
focus on urban communities, give a greater
role to civil society participation, and learn
lessons and gain experiences from other
highly vulnerable nations”
Brown et al., IIED 2013
http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17145IIED.pdf?
IIED: International Institute for Environment and Development

28. Elsewhere…
http://www.laciudadverde.co/2/
http://bicisporlavida.org/es#!/catid=1

29. What makes Dodo a great place to act?
• Learning by doing
• Global approach; sharing solutions and ideas
• Positivity; environmental activism is fun!
• Tolerance; nobody’s perfect

30. Unique
approaches to
North-South
cooperation
& environmental
work

31. Is urban planning and
(green) space
management possible
outside public offices?

32. Urban beehives: Turntable, August 17, 2013
https://www.facebook.com/events/4194928
51493066/

33. Thank you!
dodo.org