Facilitating pluralistic and inclusive visioning and scenario development for living in harmony with nature: Exploring the Nature Futures Framework from IPBES

The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) is a flexible tool to support the development of scenarios and models of desirable futures for people, nature and Mother Earth. It demonstrates world-wide relevance and adaptability across various ecosystem and contexts. Its ability to integrate diverse value systems and align with established frameworks like Shared Socio-economic Pathways highlights its potential for broad-scale, inclusive scenario planning.

Although the foundation of NFF, developed by the IPBES Task Force on Scenarios and Models was welcomed by the IPBES Plenary in 2022, its dissemination and outreach to both scientific communities and policy makers is still in embryonic stage. Therefore, this session will focus on exploring the application of the NFF as a tool to envision and develop scenarios for nature and natures’ contribution to people and beyond. It will highlight how the NFF can integrate diverse value perspectives, including intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature, to inform policy-making and strategic planning and feature insights from ongoing projects in various global contexts, including examples, showcasing how NFF-based scenarios can be used to achieve sustainable and inclusive nature futures. The event will also invite a discussion on gaps and challenges for using the NFF and explore how these can be addressed.