The voices of youth in envisioning positive futures for nature and people

Abstract

The unpredictable Anthropocene poses the challenge of imagining a radically different, equitable and sustainable world. Looking 100 years ahead is not easy, and especially as millennials, it appears quite bleak. This paper is the outcome of a visioning exercise carried out in a 2-day workshop, attended by 33 young early career professionals under the auspices of IPBES. The process used Nature Futures Framework in an adapted visioning method from the Seeds of Good Anthropocene project. Four groups envisioned more desirable future worlds; where humanity has organised itself, the economy, politics and technology, to achieve improved nature-human well-being. The four visions had differing conceptualisations of this future. However, there were interesting commonalities in their leverage points for transformative change, including an emphasis on community, fundamentally different economic systems based on sharing and technological solutions to foster sustainability and human-nature connectedness. Debates included questioning the possibility of maintaining local biocultural diversity with increased connectivity globally and the prominence of technology for sustainability outcomes. These visions are the first step towards a wider galvanisation of youth visions for a brighter future, which is often missing in the arena where it can be taken seriously, to trigger more transformative pathways towards meeting global goals ARTICLE HISTORY

Pathways towards a sustainable future envisioned by early‐career conservation researchers

“…For example, we found that respondents who voted for promotion of green technologies rarely prioritized increasing nature appreciation or reducing fertility rates. The disparity in attitudes towards technology has not been brought up in recent studies on conservationists' values (e.g., Holmes et al, 2017; Sandbrook et al, 2010; Sandbrook et al, 2019) but was found to be important for sustainability science ECRs (Rana et al, 2020). As compared to technological solutions, actions strengthening nature appreciation may seem feeble for ECRs trained in natural but not in social sciences (Bennett et al, 2017; Moon et al, 2019).…”

“…It is thus not surprising that conservation researchers, as practitioners working towards long‐term protection of biodiversity, are extremely concerned about the global ecological crisis and the lack of progress in effectuating its counteractions (Adams, 2020; Soulé, 1985). For early‐career conservation researchers (hereafter, ECRs), it is further troubling that their voices are often not involved in building the solutions for a more sustainable future (Rana et al, 2020). Public conservation discussions need accounts from marginalized groups (Milner‐Guilland, 2021).…”

“…In parallel, social sciences have gained ground within conservation research and are now recognized as a source of new solutions (Bennett et al, 2016(Bennett et al, , 2017Soulé, 1985). Building on the cumulative and increasingly interdisciplinary work done by previous generations of conservation scientists, as well as on education and the everyday emotional engagement with environmental issues (Adams, 2020;Bennett et al, 2016;Carmi, Arnon, & Orion, 2015), ECRs have great potential to create novel, holistic visions that challenge the prevalent socio-political interpretation of sustainability (Rana et al, 2020).…”

Human-nature connectedness as leverage point

“…Another effective pathway towards enhancing transformative change is the one presented by Rana et al (2020) -envisioning the futures of nature and people. This article is based on the results of a participatory scenario workshop with early career professionals at an IPBES event in Brazil that helped to identify leverage points towards sustainable and desirable futures.…”

“…The exercise was built on the Seeds of Good Anthropocene concept, using the Nature Futures Framework, where inspiring initiatives are characterized by having a transformative positive impact at other initiatives, sectors, existing values and more (Bennett et al 2016). In this regard, Rana et al (2020) present four envisioned and desirable futures elaborated during the workshop where humanity has organized itself, the economy, politics and technology, to achieve improved naturehuman well-being.…”