An environmental NGO in Finland called Dodo works on urban environmental issues. It was established in 1995 and takes a progressive approach by promoting global thinking, citizen-based action, and testing solutions with permission to fail. Dodo focuses on issues from an urban perspective and involves people of all backgrounds through positive, non-expert events and workshops. Its activities include an annual urban sustainability festival called Megapolis, urban planning initiatives, urban farming projects, and development programs in Africa addressing desertification, forest conservation, and sustainable livelihoods.

1. A Finnish environmental NGO
working in urban environments –
example of Dodo

2. Why an urban NGO?
• Majority of people live in cities; 50-50 situation was reached
in 2008
• 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,…
• Cities are not ecological bubbles!

3. 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

4. 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!

5. This is OUR city
- and us means
everyone

6. What do we do?
• Megapolis – urban festival
• Urban planning
• Urban farming
• Development cooperation
• Workshops, discussions, education, sch
ool visits,…

7. MEGAPOLIS festival + the theme of the year
• Urban solutions to global environmental problems
• annually, this year it’s 2026 and Energy, October 15
• past themes: Heroic consumerism, Happy Cities, Food &
Cities, Rhythm of Cities
• Intl & Finnish keynote speakers

8. • Effective, stimulating, social
ly and environmentally
sustainable city:
- How to create a socially
functional and aesthetic
urban environment without
forgetting environmental
conditions and social
aspects?
- How does the built
infrastructure impact the
essential forms of
entrepreneurship, people’s
Urban planning social relations and their use
of space?
- What is a good
street, courtyard, square or
park made of?

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

10. Urban farming
projects
• Pasila farm
• Temporary bagfield farming in Kalasatama
Urban dream management
• Urban beekeeping
• Bin farming, DIY!
• Fruit trees to the yards of apartment houses
• Helsinki, Tampere, Turku

14. • http://satokartta.net/

15. 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

16. • Tanymaitsoin Madagascar: forest
conservation & rural livelihoods
supporting alternative ways of income for
people living around protected areas
- vegetable plantations
- beekeeping
- rat-prevention from rice
fields
- adult literacy training
- association support

17. 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

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

20. Thank you!
dodo.org