Bringing the Nature Futures Framework to life: creating a set of illustrative narratives of nature futures

• DOI: 10.1007/s11625-023-01316-1
• Publication Date: 2023-05-04T16:01:51Z
• Authors: América Paz Durán; Jan J. Kuiper; Ana Paula Dutra A...; William W. L. Cheung; Mariteuw Chimère ...; Ghassen Halouani; Shizuka Hashimoto; Maria A. Gasalla; Garry D. Peterson; Machteld A. Schoo...; Rovshan Abbasov; Lilibeth A. Acosta; Dolors Armenteras; Federico Davila; Mekuria Argaw Den...; Paula A. Harrison; Khaled Allam Harhash; Sylvia Karlsson-V...; HyeJin Kim; Carolyn J. Lundquist; Brian W. Miller; Sana Okayasu; Ramon Pichs-Madruga; Jyothis Sathyapalan; Ali Kerem Saysel; Dandan Yu; Laura M. Pereira
• Keywords: Economics; FOS: Political science; Sustainability Transitions; Narrative; Sociology; Sustainable development; 11. Sustainability; Nature values; Political science; biodiversity; Global and Planetary Change; Global Analysis of Ecosystem Services and Land Use; Ecology; scenarios; Biodiversity; FOS: Sociology; FOS: Philosophy, ethics and religion; Programming language; [SDV] Life Sciences [q-bio]; Habitat; Sustainability; NCP; Physical Sciences; Human-Nature Interactions; Financial economics; Landscape ecology; Set (abstract data type); FOS: Law; Epistemology; 12. Responsible consumption; Transformation; Scenarios; IPBES; nature values; Sustainability Transitions and Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems; Biology; Special Feature: Original Article; transformation; Environmental ethics; Linguistics; 15. Life on land; Computer science; Philosophy; Futures contract; 13. Climate action; FOS: Biological sciences; Environmental Science; FOS: Languages and literature; Drivers and Impacts of Tropical Deforestation; Law

AbstractTo halt further destruction of the biosphere, most people and societies around the globe need to transform their relationships with nature. The internationally agreed vision under the Convention of Biological Diversity—Living in harmony with nature—is that “By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”. In this context, there are a variety of debates between alternative perspectives on how to achieve this vision. Yet, scenarios and models that are able to explore these debates in the context of “living in harmony with nature” have not been widely developed. To address this gap, the Nature Futures Framework has been developed to catalyse the development of new scenarios and models that embrace a plurality of perspectives on desirable futures for nature and people. In this paper, members of the IPBES task force on scenarios and models provide an example of how the Nature Futures Framework can be implemented for the development of illustrative narratives representing a diversity of desirable nature futures: information that can be used to assess and develop scenarios and models whilst acknowledging the underpinning value perspectives on nature. Here, the term illustrative reflects the multiple ways in which desired nature futures can be captured by these narratives. In addition, to explore the interdependence between narratives, and therefore their potential to be translated into scenarios and models, the six narratives developed here were assessed around three areas of the transformative change debate, specifically, (1) land sparing vs. land sharing, (2) Half Earth vs. Whole Earth conservation, and (3) green growth vs. post-growth economic development. The paper concludes with an assessment of how the Nature Futures Framework could be used to assist in developing and articulating transformative pathways towards desirable nature futures.