BiodiverCities Atlas : a participatory guide to building biodiverse urban futures

The BiodiverCities project engaged directly with citizens to co-create sustainable cities for the future and to enhance biodiversity in urban areas. The project sits within the context of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. The Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (CC-DEMOS) supported 10 cities in engaging citizens on the ground to co-create visions around urban nature, enhancing the quality and quantity of green spaces, monitoring urban biodiversity and finding ways to improve it. Between 2020 and 2022, more than 1 000 citizens were engaged in this process. BiodiverCities was a pilot project funded by the European Parliament, and run by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Directorate-General forEnvironment (DG ENV) of the European Commission. The project also contributed to the mapping of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services at the European scale. Cities participating in the citizen engagement stream of work were selected through a Call for an expression of interest, which gathered 40 applications. The 10 selected cities received support in the form of individual coaching, capacity building and a contract to a local citizen engagement expert.