Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto ry

descripción de la organización:

1. General: an organisation by volunteers, for volunteers

Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (hereafter FANC) is the main environmental NGO in Finland, with almost 30 000 members. The organisation was founded in 1938 and consists of 150 local groups, spread all over Finland (except for Åland). Our organisation focuses on nature and environmental protection. This includes topics such as species protection, freshwater and forest protection, mining and land use issues, as well as climate and energy.

FANC is a volunteer based organisation: most of our activities happen thanks to volunteers, at local and at regional level. Strategic decisions are taken by the General Assembly (Liittokokous) and the Council (Valtuusto). The Council elects the Board, which gathers once a month. The members of these decision bodies are all volunteers.

FANC has about 50 employees, most of whom are in Helsinki and some in our regional offices. All of the employees work in close cooperation with local and regional volunteers. We also have a structural cooperation with Luontoliitto, the Finnish youth organisation for nature.

Our main sources of income are membership fees and donations. We regularly apply for project funding from various sources too. We have participated in the EVS & ESC programmes for the last 9 years.

2. Objectives and values

Our baseline is “Together we promote the Finnish Nature”. We raise awareness about environmental issues and aim to engage local people in the protection of nature and biodiversity.

Our activities include: environmental education, nature restoration, advocacy work, targeted campaigns, participation in public consultations, etc.

Our values are very much in line with the "engage, connect and empower" targets of the ESC programme. They include:
- Cooperation: between nature conservationists from all over Finland, between different environmental organisations, with like-minded organisations from other sectors...
- Science-based: Our positions are based on peer-reviewed research. We also organise training for our local volunteers and other interested citizens.
- Transparent and democratic: Decisions are taken by our General Assembly, Council and Board, through an open and participative process.
- Independent from party politics, from economic sectors...
- Openness and popularity: We want to be an organisation where all people who want to protect nature are welcome. Inclusion and diversity are important objectives too.
- Engaging and involving: While we raise awareness about environmental issues, at the same time we want to give people tools and opportunities to act and get involved.

3. International work and engagement of international volunteers

Although most of our activities focus on Finland and Finnish nature, we are active at international level too, in various ways.

We are an active member of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe and EEB (European Environmental Bureau). This helps us to follow European environmental policy and coordinate with colleagues from all over Europe.

We also manage and operate 3 own international projects:
- A nature conservation project in Madagascar.
- Cooperation with Russian NGOs to protect transborder nature (currently much less, because, because of lack of funding opportunities for EU-Russian cooperation)
- EKOenergy, a project to promote renewable energy worldwide (Because climate is a worldwide problem, and also because a lot of goods used in Finland have been produced abroad, and in many cases their production currently heavily relies on fossil fuels.)

For these international projects too, we attract and engage volunteers. Particularly the EKOenergy project has actively engaged volunteers (almost 100 since 2012). For international volunteers, our international projects are often the easiest to get involved in, as they mainly use English as a working language.

4. Organisation of the Secretariat

Our national Secretariat is based in Helsinki and has about 40 employees. Most of these employees work on specific activities. For example, FANC is the editor of the Suomen Luonto magazine, a popular monthly magazine covering nature in Finland (www.suomenluonto.fi) and we run a nature shop (www.luontokauppa.fi).

The core of the nature protection work happens by the Environmental Policy (Unit https://www.sll.fi/yhteystiedot/suojelu/), in close cooperation with the local groups. The nature protection work is further supported by the communication team and the fundraising and organisational support team.

The international volunteers that we will host between 2021-2027 will be part of the EKOenergy team. The EKOenergy team operates directly under the head of the Environmental Policy Unit. At the same time they will have opportunities to get engaged in activities of other departments too, in as far as language and the situation allows. See further down in the project application for more information.

Volunteering project