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LISBON | European Green Capital 2020
Ivo Meco - the Botany Professor
Lisbon’s Engaged Citizens
Ivo Meco is a Lisbon based biology and geology teacher, who last year published a book on Lisbon’s gardens.
Lisbon’s citizens are very active and are key to ensuring the city is moving forward in every way.
A true nature enthusiast, Lisbon’s Botanical Greenhouse (Estufa Fria) has been very prominent in Ivo’s life since childhood. In his book, “Lisbon’s Gardens”, a part guide / memoir / botanical manual, the Botanical Greenhouse is highlighted as one of Lisbon’s green spaces.
Lisbon is a strong believer in giving “power to the people”. Citizenship and bottom-up strategies play a key role in several of the city’s green choices.
When considering what is next for Lisbon and Portugal, Ivo’s outlook is simple. “This sustainability issue is not just about planting a tree or separating the plastics; I think it has a lot to do with how we relate to each other because another person’s problem is my problem and my problem is theirs”.
European climate targets acted as a lighthouse for Lisbon´s strategies and policy making, setting the city’s agenda for the next decade. The Lisbon Administrative Reform has reassigned some municipal duties to urban districts. This ambitious administrative reform aims to bring urban management closer to citizens and improve public services. Measures include sharing competencies between the municipality and urban districts for services such as street cleaning, management of small gardens / green spaces and licensing. By bringing urban districts closer to communities, citizen engagement is improving. A municipal app “Na minha Rua” (“In My Street”) was launched to make direct citizen communication easier. The app sends information directly from citizens to the relevant stakeholder to solve an issue; and regular status updates are issued to the sender. A brand new municipal app, “Lisboa 24”, maps relevant information across all municipal services, namely information about city trees, providing alerts about planned interventions that citizens can track.
