Artistic representation of the Americas session of the 2021 IPBES workshop on Indigenous and local knowledge on scenarios and the Nature Futures Framework, created by Naresh Bhoye; IPBES (2021).
Methodological Guidance for using the Nature Futures Framework
The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) is designed to be a flexible tool for developing novel scenarios that incorporate the multiplicity of value perspectives around nature. It is applicable to many contexts and does not specify either the number of future scenarios that can be developed nor the specific methods that can be used for generating these scenarios. Resultantly, the NFF allows users to develop scenarios in a creative and relevant manner applicable to their context. The methodological guidance detailed here, therefore, is not intended to be prescriptive or offer highly specific or pre-defined characteristics for scenarios. Instead, it illustrates how the NFF could be used and exists as a guide to be drawn upon, alongside the abundance of existing literature on scenario development, to aid users in generating scenarios.
NFF-based scenario applications could be helpful to illuminate possibilities for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity of ‘Living in harmony with nature’ and to give support to the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. By generating scenarios based on desirable perspectives on nature, applying the NFF guidance further allows for the identification of transformative policy options that can enable these futures, including pathways to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals across economic, social and environmental criteria as well as the synergies between sustainability goals. As such, the NFF combines a target-seeking approach to scenario development (to determine what is inside versus outside the triangle, i.e. desirable versus undesirable) with an exploratory approach (to represent the diverse range of values that underlie desirable futures within the triangle). It can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative policy, management and transformative options. [SHORTEN; intended use and thus approach of the NFF]
It is important to emphasise that the corners of the triangle are not antagonistic, but rather relative: moving closer to one value perspective means moving away from one of the others. This relativity between extreme value perspectives ensures that emerging scenarios are inclusive, pluralistic, and representative of the many sustainable combinations that can take place within the triangle. How to capture this complexity of plural values in the NFF will depend on the goals/targets of the study and this will determine the most appropriate methods. Hence, it is important to start by explicitly defining these goals/targets and then to think critically about the process that is required to meet these goals. In particular, it may be necessary to think through the need for participation in defining the goals and then how to ensure that the process is inclusive. Reflexivity on goals, process and methods is important to ensure that all elements of the IPBES conceptual framework as well as diverse value perspectives on nature are taken into account when using the NFF for scenario development. Finally, the NFF is not only useful for scenario development, but can also be useful to open dialogue on existing scenarios or ongoing processes to discuss possible futures. [MOVE TO TRIANGLE PG? - as too much text here]
Common and specific features
Common and specific features can be a useful methodological approach for determining themes that are important to describe in scenarios and are dependent on the goal of the study. Common features are shared across all scenarios within a scenario framework, whilst specific features are unique to the position of the scenario within the framework being used for a study. If scenarios are being developed from scratch, common and specific features can be used to identify the main building blocks of the scenarios. If a study is using existing scenarios, they can help in analysing and comparing characteristics between scenarios. Scenarios with shared specific features may be referred to as a ‘scenario family’. Archetype analysis may be useful for defining ‘scenario families’ or ‘scenario archetypes’ that have shared specific features or characteristics (Harrison et al., 2019; Sitas et al., 2019).
Visions
A vision is a description (narrative, image, etc.) of a desirable future state and usually depicts the explicit desires, assumptions, beliefs, and paradigms that underlie the desired future of those undertaking the visioning process. Importantly, visions of a desired future state can form the target space for target-seeking scenarios (or an orientation for transformative change) that describe how the future unfolds towards making the visions a reality. As part of a visioning process, the NFF can be used to help participants in the visioning process to articulate their diverse values, preferences and types of relationships with nature, in order to envision a desirable future that is shaped by these aspirations. The NFF ensures that nature and people are at the centre of these co-produced visions, and, importantly, provides a tractable link between the envisioned futures and their underpinning value expressions.
Pathways
Pathways are descriptions of strategies for moving from the present situation towards a predefined vision or set of specified targets. They describe purposive courses of actions that build on each other, from short-term to long-term actions into broader transformation (Ferguson et al., 2013; Frantzeskaki et al., 2012; Wise et al., 2014). Thus, building and analysing pathways is key to evaluating the effectiveness of possible policies or sets of policy options for achieving desirable futures for nature and people. For the development of new pathways, the NFF can be combined with existing frameworks or methodological approaches. One such framework is the Three Horizons Framework and its adaptations, which helps to identify and describe the features of the current system that would need to be fostered and those that would need to decline, as well as the transient dominance of certain phenomena that, collectively, constitute pathways from the current system to particular, desirable visions of the future (Sharpe et al., 2016).
Narratives/scenario narratives
Narratives (or scenario narratives) are qualitative descriptions of the future, typically in the form of written stories. They communicate the underlying characteristics, general logic and developments (including common and specific features) of a scenario. As such, a narrative can be used to weave together a vision with a pathway into a coherent story. A narrative can also be outlined first, after which a compelling vision and concrete pathway can be developed. Indeed, narratives can provide the basis for further development, discussion and dissemination of the ideas behind the narrative, for example through the formulation of quantitative scenarios using models. Based on the NFF, an unlimited number of narratives of desirable nature futures may be produced.
Modelling
Models can be used to assess the consequences of different policy interventions in NFF-based scenarios for biodiversity and nature contributions to people (Kim et al., 2023). NFF-based scenarios can also be used to examine how policy interventions that lead to changes in nature’s contributions to people may result in feedbacks, and for instance reinforce the effect of those policy interventions (for example in an urban context, see Mansur et al., 2022). Models can range from correlative relationships between variables in a social-ecological system to mechanistic models that can simulate complex social-ecological dynamics through mathematical equations or agent-based modelling (IPBES, 2016a; Brown & Rounsevell, 2021). Quantitative modelling does not replace other qualitative tools that can be used in the development of NFF-based scenarios (e.g. participatory tools, local and expert knowledge). Initial narratives produced with qualitative tools may need to be refined in response to results from models, while models themselves may need to be refined to best capture key dynamics or priorities informed by local and expert knowledge.
Indicators
Indicators are another important tool for scenarios and models. Indicators can be used to construct coherent descriptions of narratives in qualitative or quantitative terms. They also enable models to quantify the narratives for comparison of various policy options. For the NFF scenarios, an integrative use of quantitative and qualitative indicators is needed given the limited availability of indicators for certain nature value perspectives, in particular, nature as culture/one with nature. Furthermore, indicators can be identified across the elements of the IPBES conceptual framework using common and specific features of the NFF and these indicators can be mapped onto policy frameworks such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to evaluate and set milestones that represent the complex systems dynamics and nexus interactions between diverse drivers and nature and nature’s contributions to people (Kim et al., 2023).
Combining methods
In order to address the challenge of offering useful and relevant information for decision-making, it has been suggested that a toolbox of mixed methods for approaches to formulate futures is needed for developing scenarios and models for global environmental assessments such as those undertaken by IPBES (Pereira et al., 2021a). Such a toolbox of approaches to formulating futures that harness complementarities between top-down and bottom-up methods would be better able to address current knowledge gaps and would be employed depending on the specific aim that they seek to achieve.