Society’s capacity to chart credible pathways toward positive futures for both nature and people, under accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, depends fundamentally on the identification of futures that are simultaneously biophysically plausible and socially desirable. Scenario development has therefore become a central tool for supporting decision-making across scales, from local adaptation planning to global environmental assessments and policy processes. To date, two major and largely complementary strands of research and practice have emerged to address these distinct but interdependent dimensions of future-oriented thinking.
Problem-focused approaches, most prominently climate change scenario planning, have prioritised the systematic exploration of plausible trajectories of socio-environmental change, associated risks, and biophysical constraints. These approaches have generated robust frameworks, such as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and Representative Concentration Pathways, which are now deeply embedded in climate research, impact assessments, and policy discourse. In parallel, solution-focused approaches have sought to articulate desirable futures by foregrounding normative goals, societal values, and alternative relationships between humans and nature. The IPBES Nature Futures Framework represents a major advance in this domain, offering a structured, pluralistic approach to envisioning futures grounded in intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature.
Despite their shared relevance for sustainability-oriented governance, these two traditions have largely progressed in isolation, with limited conceptual or methodological integration. As a result, existing scenarios often either emphasise what is likely to happen under given constraints or what societies would like to achieve, but rarely both in a coherent and operational manner. This separation constrains the ability of scenarios to inform transformative action, as desirable futures may lack feasibility, while plausible futures may offer little guidance for normative choice.
In this presentation, we first synthesise recent conceptual and methodological advances in both problem- and solution-focused scenario traditions. We then initiate the development of an integrative framework for constructing holistic scenarios of global change that explicitly combine physical plausibility with societal desirability. Such an approach aims to support more coherent exploration of adaptation pathways, biodiversity futures, and sustainability transitions, thereby strengthening the relevance of scenario-based tools for policy, planning, and collective action.
How to cite: Miller, B. and Pereira, L.: Positive and possible: Combining problem- and solution-focused scenarios of nature and people , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-978, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-978, 2026.
In response to the current biodiversity crisis, various efforts have emerged to develop pathways toward nature-positive futures that align with the goals and targets of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). However, the social sciences and humanities remain underrepresented in these studies. This is problematic, as it risks neglecting issues of justice and equity and may inadvertently reproduce unjust or unsustainable relations. In this paper, we address the need to imagine and develop scenarios for achieving the GBF goals and targets in a just manner. We argue that just, nature-positive pathways—developed through inclusive and participatory processes—are essential for informing transformative policy and inspiring equitable action. In doing so, we respond to calls for more inclusive explorations of futures informed by the social sciences. In this study, we respond to the calls for a more inclusive and approach informed by the social sciences. A pluriversal approach refers to acknowledging the existence of multiple realities, rather than a singular, universal one, such as the hegemonic Western perspective. In doing so, it advocates for the coexistence and fruitful exchange of different knowledge systems, cultural practices and beliefs. We aim to address this gap through developing a conceptual framework based on a range of relevant literatures and practices, which in turn will inform the development of a “toolkit” for developing visions and pathways that incorporate crucial insights from the social sciences. The point of departure for our study was the Nature Futures Framework (NFF). In addition, we use the concept of justice as a lens to interrogate underlying power dynamics, structural inequities, and trade-offs between actors’ stakes and goals in processes of transformative societal change. Drawing on the NFF as well as on additional insights from the social sciences and humanities, we present a conceptual framework for developing such pathways. We apply the framework in three distinct case studies focused on cities, landscapes, and value chains. As such, we demonstrate possibly novel applications of the NFF.
How to cite: Rutting, L. and Schoolenberg, M.: A framework for just, nature-positive futures based on the Nature Futures Framework: exploring pathways for cities, landscapes and value chains., World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-834, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-834, 2026.
The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) aims to open up space for plural perspectives on human–nature relationships and to identify visions for people to navigate towards desirable nature-positive futures. Operationalising the NFF offers a way to explore alternative pathways to reach these futures, but such applications are currently underdeveloped. Normative narratives can describe pathways towards nature-positive futures based on environmental policy objectives and the diverse values within and across societies. Here, we review the EU’s policy objectives for land systems, biodiversity, climate, and the environment, including the European Green Deal, to identify actions and create pathway narratives at the EU scale that lead to a nature-positive future. Specifically, we developed three pathway narratives along the three NFF value perspectives that are distinct in how they implement actions to achieve EU policy objectives. In Nature for Nature, the restoration of natural processes is prioritised, in Nature as Culture/One with Nature the connection of people with nature is emphasised, and in Nature for Society development focuses on safeguarding ecosystem services. Whilst clear differences in the valuation of nature between the pathway narratives may lead to trade-offs, we also see several potential synergies for meeting policy objectives. These narratives can inform models to quantify NFF-based scenarios to understand the trade-offs and synergies of achieving the EU’s policy objectives on land use, ecosystem provisioning, and quality of life. They can also serve as a basis for the creation of case study narratives within the EU through participatory processes.
Published in Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-025-01737-0
Raymond J.*, Schmitt, T.M.*, Tschol, M.*, Bakx, T., Brotons, L., Brown, Cl., Buitenwerf, R., Díaz-General, E., Ferreto, A., Kloibhofer, J., Laimer, T., Moreira, F., Pang, S., Plumanns-Pouton, E., Prestele, R., Smith, A., Svenning, J., Venancio, M., Rounsevell, M. 2025. Pathway narratives towards a nature-positive EU Land system: operationalizing the Nature Futures Framework for EU Policy objectives. Sustainability Science.
How to cite: Schmitt, T., Raymond, J., Tschol, M., and Rounsevell, M.: Pathway narratives towards a nature‑positive European Union land system: operationalising the Nature Futures Framework for policy objectives, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-674, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-674, 2026.
Financial actors distribute capital, determining which activities grow and influence the structure of the economy. Recently, many financial institutions have expressed interest in reducing nature degradation and increasing investments in nature-positive activities. To date, most initiatives have focused either on quantifying nature-related financial risks or on reframing nature as an investable asset. While valuable, these approaches alone are unlikely to meet global nature goals. By primarily emphasizing the instrumental value of nature, they risk reinforcing a narrow conception of value and overlooking the diverse ways people and organizations already act to protect and restore nature.
The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) suggests that at least three main value perspectives - Nature for Society, Nature as Culture, and Nature as Nature – describe most ways in which people relate to nature, and that planning or management for nature should consider and track these multiple values. To expand the universe of nature-related financial activities, we combine Nature Futures scenarios with a systems approach to finance, to analyse how existing and emerging financial instruments could align with different nature values.
Building on the illustrative NFF scenarios developed by Duran et al. (2023) and informed by a systems analysis of finance (Crona et al. 2025), we examine how core financial functions could be performed in six nature-positive scenarios in which different nature-value perspectives dominate (NS, NS/NC, NC, NC/NN, NN, NN/NS). Specifically, we articulate how key financial actors such as banks, investors, and insurers perform core functions such as daily transactions, long-term funding for nature and social projects, and insurance in face of disasters in ways that align with the people–nature relationships envisioned in each scenario.
We develop a set of exploratory Nature Finance Futures that identify how different financial actors and activities could provide financial transactions, investment, and risk-sharing, connecting local needs for capital with global financial resources, in ways which support nature-positive futures embodying different nature value perspectives. These scenarios intersecting finance and the NFF respond to calls from both the financial community for more nature-focused futures and from the NFF community for applications of the NFF to create new scenarios.
How to cite: Voicu, B., Carpenter-Urquhart, L., Meacham, M., and Peterson, G.: Nature Finance Futures: Exploratory scenarios for nature-positive financial systems, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-172, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-172, 2026.
Finance steers the global economy, determining which activities thrive and which decline. Historically, financial flows have driven biodiversity loss. In response, the concept of "Nature Positive Finance" has emerged, arguing that investments should actively enhance nature rather than either ignoring it or merely minimizing harm. However, current definitions of "Nature Positive" remain vague. Furthermore, when analyzed using the Nature Futures Framework (NFF), they embody values clustered around ‘Nature for Society’, with minimal attention to ‘Nature for Nature’ values and almost none to ‘Nature as Culture’ values. This narrowness contrasts with the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which explicitly embraces pluralistic nature values.
Without a robust, pluralistic definition, Nature Positive Finance will not be effective and could even promote conflict. This paper proposes a systems-oriented approach to Nature Positive Finance. We trace the roots of nature-positive concepts across knowledge clusters in the Natural, Social, and Integrated sciences. We compare over twenty knowledge clusters that contain nature-positive concepts ranging from Earth System Governance and Planetary Boundaries, to Industrial Ecology and Environmental Justice, to Rewilding and Landscape Ecology.
To robustly compare these diverse streams, we employ a tripartite coding methodology designed to capture the plural dimensionality of nature-positive approaches:
- The NFF is used to identify implicit nature values and visions of the future.
- The Seven Resilience Principles are used to assess how each stream handles different aspects of social-ecological complexity, such as connectivity, feedbacks, and polycentricity.
- Dryzek’s Environmental Discourses are used to deconstruct the political framings and problem definitions embedded in each stream.
Our analysis reveals that no single stream covers all domains; however, a synthesis of them spans the full spectrum of values, dynamics, and narratives. We argue that genuine nature-positive action must bridge these perspectives. We suggest that the NF, in combination with the resilience principles, can provide a methodological framework that will enable multiple approaches to Nature Positive to be used in a complementary fashion that clarifies the existence of gaps, trade-offs, and synergies. We believe that anchoring Nature Positive Finance within a rigorous, diverse scientific foundation can enable approaches that respect the diversity of people, knowledge, and nature.
How to cite: Peterson, G., Meacham, M., Folke, C., and Voicu, B.-I.: Financing the Pluriverse: A Nature Futures Framework Foundation for Nature Positive Finance, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-529, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-529, 2026.
When the Nature Futures Framework was published in 2020 it was the first biodiversity-centric initiative to provide a global framework through which scenarios of nature could be analysed. In the last five years, over 50 scientific papers have been published using this framework to explore how prioritising differing values of nature may influence the future for biodiversity and people. However, much of this work remains in the academic sphere. There is a recognised need for nature scenarios by businesses and financial actors for example, to guide business strategy, for managing financial risk and macroeconomic stability. We discuss the barriers to uptake of the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) with a focus on how it can be applied to guide financial and economic decision making. As well as consideration of barriers, we outline how the multiple values of nature that are encoded in the Nature Futures Framework could provide useful insights to business and financial actors by allowing alignment or integration of multiple objectives relevant to businesses. For example, moving beyond Nature for Society providing a focus on operational risks, Nature for Nature may be able to provide insight on compliance risks, and Nature as Culture on reputational risks. We draw from the use case of the Network for Greening Financial Systems (NGFS), who are working to develop nature scenarios for use by central banks, to provide a concrete example of the gaps between the state of the art in nature models and scenarios and their uptake by financial and business actors. We explore and contrast how scale, both temporal and geographic, and uncertainty are perceived by the research and financial end user communities. We conclude with a call to action for future research to bridge the gap between the academic development of the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) and the user needs, particularly for guiding real world outcomes by these influential actors.
How to cite: Brooks, S. and Hill, S.: Financing nature through the Nature Futures Framework, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-841, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-841, 2026.
Objectives for the restoration of coastal ecosystems (e.g., mangroves, seagrass meadows, saltmarshes, and oyster reefs) are commonly articulated in terms of ecological integrity, habitat provision, or biodiversity recovery. In parallel, restoration initiatives are increasingly framed as nature-based solutions intended to deliver instrumental ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, shoreline stabilisation, and flood risk reduction. While these outcomes are undeniably important, such a framing tends to privilege a relatively narrow subset of benefits and risks underrepresenting a broader range of social, cultural, and relational values associated with coastal environments. Restoration can, for example, enhance access to coastal spaces for recreation, strengthen place-based identities and cultural practices, foster social cohesion, and generate local employment opportunities through long-term stewardship and monitoring activities.
Failure to account for this diversity of benefits may bias the identification of restoration priorities, leading to the systematic undervaluation of sites that are ecologically comparable but socially or culturally distinct. Consequently, restoration planning that explicitly integrates multiple value dimensions has the potential to alter both the spatial distribution and the societal outcomes of restoration investments. Here, we apply the IPBES Nature Futures Framework (NFF), a recently developed global biodiversity scenarios framework grounded in the coexistence of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature, to inform the prioritisation of coastal restoration actions.
Using case studies from tropical Queensland, Australia, and temperate coastal systems in Aotearoa New Zealand, we demonstrate how considering multiple, co-occurring nature values reveals alternative restoration pathways that would not emerge from biophysically oriented assessments alone. These scenarios illustrate how restoration strategies can simultaneously support biodiversity conservation, strengthen local and regional economies, and enhance human well-being. Notably, the NFF foregrounds the role of Indigenous knowledge systems, governance arrangements, and cultural connections to place, while also emphasising non-material benefits that have historically been marginalised in formal decision-making processes. Integrating such perspectives provides a more comprehensive and socially robust foundation for coastal restoration policy and practice.
How to cite: Lundquist, C., Jackson, E., and Bulmer, R.: Prioritising sites for coastal restoration based on a diversity of societal, cultural and ecological outcomes, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-976, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-976, 2026.
Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened ecosystems globally yet are often underrepresented in governance processes. To support sustainable and equitable governance of lakes, an international transdisciplinary Water4All research project, called PLURALAKES, was launched. Using the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) as a guiding tool, PLURALAKES is developing and testing a novel approach to co-creating desired visions for lake futures, as well as pathways to achieving them, across case studies in Finland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. To inform practical pathways for achieving desired lake futures, we combine participatory visioning, systems thinking, environmental valuation, and ecosystem modelling across cases. Here, we present our transdisciplinary approach to envisioning desired lake futures and developing practical, and desired, pathways for achieving them. To illustrate the application of the PLURALAKES approach, we share preliminary insights and reflections from PLURALAKES’ participatory visioning and pathways workshops in the English Lake District, where lakes are deeply valued yet strongly impacted by human activity, including agriculture and tourism. Because these lakes are experiencing water quality issues that affect many lakes across the world—and given the conflicting interests and values that often perpetuate these issues—the English Lake District offers an ideal case study for demonstrating how the PLURALAKES approach incorporates plural values and co-develops pathways towards shared visions. In these participatory workshops, we draw on tools such as the NFF and the X-curve to co-develop visions of desired futures in the Lake District, which were later presented back to participants as narratives. These narratives, combined with causal loop diagrams and further engagement with X-curves, were then used to identify important intervention points in the system and to chart pathways to achieving desired visions for these lakes. Future work will draw on long-term (80-year) datasets and modelling to develop quantitative and semi-quantitative pathways to achieving these visions. These pathways will be used to inform local lake governance.
How to cite: Spence, D., Kuiper, J., Martin, R., Mackay, E., and Moorhouse, H.: PLURALAKES: Using the Nature Futures Framework to co-create visions for desired lake futures and practical pathways to achieving them, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-652, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-652, 2026.
Scenarios are widely used tools for guiding decision-making and implementing actions to prevent ecosystem decline, yet most models underrepresent local perceptions and values. We addressed this gap by co-developing forest futures with communities adjacent to Iko and Mbangassina forest patches in Nigeria and Cameroon, respectively. Both forest patches are located in agricultural landscapes characterized by cocoa production. We conducted three workshops in Nigeria and three in Cameroon, using a participatory scenario envisioning approach to co-produce future forest scenarios with community members. This was further complemented by 34 semi-structured interviews at both local and national levels. Thirty participants in Nigeria and forty in Cameroon envisioned the future of their forests based on three main scenarios aligned with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). The outcomes were later compared with the Nature Futures Framework value perspectives of the IPBES to reflect how people value and envision nature. The results show that participants anticipated a slight reduction in forest cover and the associated Nature's Contributions to People (NCPs) under a business-as-usual scenario (SSP2). In contrast, the participants envisioned a more significant decline in forest cover under the fragmentation scenario (SSP3). However, in a sustainability scenario (SSP1), they envisioned a notable recovery of forest cover along with enhanced associated benefits. In the sustainability scenario, participants highlight that enhancing local institutions will strengthen community-based governance, social inclusion, and promote transparent decision-making. Furthermore, interviews highlighted that collaborative efforts in local forest management, along with effective government involvement, are crucial for ensuring forest ecological functions and positive impacts on community well-being. The adopted participatory modelling approach offers insights on how to enrich scenarios and modelling with local knowledge. While linking insights from the workshops with those from the expert interviews is challenging, the study highlights potential pathways towards forest management that integrates insights across local-national scales. It provides a basis for further studies that can translate these narratives into spatial modelling.
Keywords: Nature Futures Framework, Scenario narrative, communities envisioning, local forests, West Africa, IPBES.
How to cite: Tabi Eckebil, P. P., O. Akinyemi, F., and Ifejika Speranza, C.: Integrating Shared Socio-economic Pathway scenarios with Nature Futures Framework to envision local forest futures in West Africa, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-645, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-645, 2026.
With the rising land demands for urbanization and rapid economic growth, India's forest future is marked with multiple uncertainties. The paper explores India's forest future using the IPBES’s Nature Future Framework (NFF) and highlights how pluralistic viewpoints are essential to guide decision-making related to forest sustainability. By applying the Nature Future framework, the study demonstrates how diverse value orientations can share the policy priorities for effective conservation until 2070. The paper first attempts to map the existing forest policies and programs against the three alternative value frameworks of NFF, namely, Nature for Nature, Nature for Society, and Nature for Culture. This mapping exercise helps to reveal how historical policy choices and governance structures have favored certain value systems over others. Further, to understand the various assumptions and power dynamics in the forest governance, we deployed a theory mapping approach to screen the dominant narrative of existing forest programs and policies. The main findings of this study indicate two dominant underlying narratives within the federal forest policies, i.e., ‘nature for nature’ in the pre-colonial era and ‘nature for society’ during the late 1990s, when schemes like Joint Forest Management and the Forest Rights Act dominated forest governance. These shifts reflect broader socio-political transformations in India, including democratization of resource management and growing attention to rural livelihoods. We further observed a shift in priorities in recent years that focuses on enhancing India's forest carbon stocks through afforestation and reforestation, aligning with India’s NetZero ambitions; this shift somewhat undermines participatory forest governance and traditional rights over forest resources, reflecting a realignment towards the nature-for-nature pathway. India's global climate commitments strongly influence this transition, giving priority to carbon outcomes over social and cultural considerations. In conclusion, the paper highlights significant opportunities to transform to a more inclusive forest future through the adoption of nature as a cultural pathway. Such initiatives may include the recognition and scaling of traditional agroforestry systems, conservation of sacred forests, and revival of traditional forest practices, among others. These approaches can play a critical role in balancing ecological, cultural, and developmental priorities while strengthening India’s ability to safeguard forests.
How to cite: Dasgupta, R., Basu, M., and Kanojia, V.: Applying the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to navigate India's forest future, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-647, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-647, 2026.
Global environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change across various regions of the world are deeply intertwined with social and political tensions. Yet the voices and hopes of people living in conflict-affected or politically divided regions are not often reflected in ecological research or policy. In these times when conflicts are becoming more frequent and damage from environmental destruction and climate change more commonplace, alternative and equitable visions for the future is more urgently needed than ever. In this study focussed on the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) of Korea – one of the world's most militarised and politically sensitive regions – we co-developed futures of peaceful coexistence between nature and people with Korean citizens. Using a visioning process that included various creative facilitation methods and collaborative activities, we imagined what desirable and peaceful futures for people and nature on the Korean peninsula could be. The visions described by the participants emphasised human-nature coexistence, ecosystem restoration, self-sufficient renewable energy systems, social inclusion and wellbeing, and lifelong ecological learning. Many participants viewed peace itself as an essential prerequisite for environmental recovery and community welfare. This study demonstrates how the Korean Peninsula's unique geopolitical context shapes the ways people imagine and negotiate future possibilities, but also what some of their core aspirations are. Our findings demonstrate that participatory visioning can serve as an effective approach to start incorporating citizens' perspectives into decision-making processes across jurisdictional levels. Connecting local aspirations to national and global objectives is one important role of the science-policy-society in bridging between research, governance, and community voices. This offers a pathway towards more inclusive and transformative sustainability planning, even within complex or divided contexts. In this presentation, we introduce two visioning workshops conducted with citizen stakeholders during the DMZ Open Festival’s Ecopeace Forum in 2023 and 2024 in Korea, where diverse frameworks, methodological and analytical approaches, and science-communication tools were used to catalyze transformative change.
How to cite: Kim, H., Peterson, G., Harrison, P., Johnson, J., Karger, D., Miller, B., Pereira, L., and Schaepman, G.: Visioning and realizing ecologically diverse and harmonious futures of Korea in Good Anthropocene through citizen engagement in science-policy-society interfaces, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-713, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-713, 2026.
Utilizing the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to produce operational scenarios for policy and decision-making requires methodological innovation to bridge conceptual ambitions with practical implementation. This presentation shares insights from developing NFF-based scenarios in two national-scale research projects: ValPar.CH in Switzerland and NASCENT-PERU in Peru. Both projects centred on area-based conservation under socio-environmental change, explicitly embedding policy targets such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework's 30x30 commitment.
In our experience, a central challenge in applying the NFF is overcoming ‘status-quo’ thinking to generate truly imaginative and transformative visions of desirable futures, which requires diverse and carefully designed participatory processes. We employed multi-regional stakeholder workshops to capture perspectives across different geographic and social contexts, borrowing planning tools such as the three-horizons framework to help participants envision distinct alternative futures and chart pathways from current conditions. Moving from qualitative visions to quantifiable scenarios also requires additional methodological creativity: we utilized interactive web applications to code workshop content into NFF dimensions and elicit expected changes in socio-environmental drivers. Operationalizing these quantified scenarios in simulation models enabled systematic comparison of alternative conservation strategies, revealing trade-offs and synergies across NFF-relevant indicators such as biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Throughout this process, we encountered recurring challenges. Notably, we identified a tension between some dimensions of participant visions, such as continuation of environmentally damaging economic activities, and the nature-positive intent of scenarios, which may not be fully reconcilable. Additionally, a gap remains in meaningfully assessing predicted outcomes with respect to the NFF "nature as culture" dimension, which is contextual and resistant to standardized metrics.
A crucial lesson concerned stakeholder engagement. Maintaining meaningful participation throughout lengthy scenario development processes benefits from returning results to stakeholders in timely fashion, ahead of scientific publications, as well as employing interactive visualization methods to make technical outputs accessible and relevant to diverse audiences.
By reflecting critically on these methodological experiences, this presentation contributes practical insights into applying the NFF in different national contexts, demonstrates approaches for integrating plural perspectives into quantitative scenario work, and identifies key opportunities and obstacles for linking the NFF with conservation policy frameworks.
How to cite: Black, B., Grêt-Regamey, A., Mayer, P., and Kurmann, M.: Insights from the development of national scale Nature Futures Framework scenarios in both Switzerland and Peru , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-318, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-318, 2026.
This contribution presents an updated synthesis of the rapidly expanding literature engaging with the IPBES Nature Futures Framework (NFF). Building on a recent synthesis of the peer-reviewed literature published in 2025, we broaden the scope to include most recent publications and practice-based (“grey”) literature, resulting in a body of close to 80 publications referencing the NFF since 2020. Among the publications newly added since the 2025 synthesis, approximately 45% are peer-reviewed articles, with limited but notable non-English contributions. Most studies identify a specific geographic context, with the highest representation in Europe and Central Asia, followed by Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. Ecosystems most frequently examined include forests, urban and peri-urban areas, water bodies, and croplands, reflecting the wide range of socio-ecological settings in which the NFF is being tested.
Preliminary analyses reveal an important shift in how the NFF is being applied. While earlier work primarily used the NFF to develop future visions, recent studies increasingly use it as an exploratory tool to identify and articulate diverse nature-related values across contexts, often in participatory or transdisciplinary settings. The inclusion of grey literature and practice-oriented theses highlights growing uptake beyond academia and captures regionally grounded experimentation that conventional reviews often overlook.
Our synthesis also examines how NFF applications link to major policy frameworks such as the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals, with several studies explicitly connecting plural valuation exercises to national or subnational planning processes. Emerging gaps point to key areas for future research, including strengthening the operational use of the NFF for policy and action, addressing trade-offs among diverse perspectives, advancing equity and justice dimensions, and more fully addressing the diversity of Indigenous People and Local Communities’ knowledge systems. Together, these insights illustrate both the momentum and the remaining challenges in translating the NFF into actionable pathways for nature-positive futures.
How to cite: Ng, S., Hamel, P., Kanojia, V., Achemo, M., Kumar, P., and Dasgupta, R.: From Visions to Practice: Insights from Recent Applications of the Nature Futures Framework, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-455, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-455, 2026.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) was adopted in 2022 as a global strategy to address the worsening biodiversity crisis and the widespread degradation of ecosystems. Acknowledged within the Framework is the diversity of worldviews and value perspectives on nature's roles in different societal and cultural contexts that embody the plurality of human-nature relationships. These value perspectives could influence how the GBF is interpreted and also play a critical role in how these targets are operationalised and implemented, potentially leading to diverging pathways to meet the same targets. To explore this interpretive variability, we employ the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) as a conceptual and analytical lens. The NFF offers a structured approach to capturing the diversity of positive human-nature relationships, represented through three stylised perspectives: nature for nature (intrinsic and existence values), nature for society (instrumental values) and nature as culture (relational values and non material benefits). We present a set of global narratives that were developed with a global network of experts in various domains of conservation science. The narratives illustrate divergent visions of the future, underscoring the need for critical reflection and inclusive debate on the legitimacy of associated policy choices. We also offer semi-quantitative expert-elicited estimates of change in 22 indirect drivers spanning social, technological, economic and environmental domains to characterise how the wider world would look if society held each NFF value perspective. Additionally, we present a collection of real world case studies that we map onto the NFF value space and link to specific GBF targets, indicative of alternative, value pluralist conservation models. This conceptual reframing of the GBF as a values-contingent convention provides a foundation for both policymakers and researchers, including modellers, to consider nature protection policies and actions that reflect the plurality of nature values, helping to sustain public legitimacy in policy formulation and facilitating further research to address uncertainties in future trajectories for people and nature.
How to cite: Burns, J. and the Biofutures & BES‑SIM2 NFF–GBF narrative working group: Global biodiversity narratives contingent on values-based interpretations of the Global Biodiversity Framework, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-465, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-465, 2026.
The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) sets an ambitious pathway towards living in harmony with nature by 2050, while acknowledging that diverse value perspectives can shape how targets are interpreted, operationalised and implemented. To explore these alternative pathways, we use the Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to define and model plausible future scenarios. These scenarios are simulated in a global land system model, LandSyMM, that couples land-use decision-making, food and timber demand, and global trade. For each NFF value perspective, spatial protection and restoration masks are generated using a prioritisation approach, and implemented alongside management‑intensity limits that span a sparing‑to‑sharing gradient inside and outside protected areas. Nine scenarios are run: a reference pathway and four NFF perspectives—Nature for Nature (NfN), a national variant of NfN (NfNl), Nature for Society (NfS) and Nature as Culture (NaC)—each in Policy‑Only (nature policy with SSP2 indirect drivers) and Full variants (nature policy plus value‑consistent indirect drivers for diets, trade and technology).
Results show that alternative values based implementation of KM-GBF reallocate where production and conservation occur, and change whether particular locations intensify or de intensify, with knock on displacement and supply chain effects. These results reveal systematic contrasts and emergent hotspots between values-based implementations of global nature policy, with hotspots at active land‑use frontiers, e.g., tropical South America and Southeast Asia. The policy implementations lead to some increases in food prices, with impacts on diets, but including indirect drivers substantially reduces these impacts. The modelled land system outcomes include a continuum of land-use intensity as well as changes in land-cover category and crop type annually for 2021–2100 at 0.5° spatial resolution with continuous management fields (nitrogen fertiliser application, irrigation water use, timber rotation length). Additionally, land-cover maps are downscaled to 0.01°, and the endogenously derived food and timber prices and consumption data are provided, enabling analysis of wider socioeconomic trade-offs in achieving conservation commitments. These data are suitable as forcings for biodiversity and ecosystem modelling. These value‑explicit, management‑sensitive datasets are directly usable for global assessments and timely for revising National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans.
How to cite: Alexander, P., Arendarczyk, B., Hill, S., Cannanure, V. K., Maney, C., Rounsevell, M., van Soesbergen, A., Walkden, P., Woodman, T., and Burns, J.: Global land futures under values-based interpretations of the Global Biodiversity Framework, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-456, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-456, 2026.
Achieving biodiverse and sustainable futures requires understanding not only which nature-centred pathways are desirable, but how diverse actors might actually navigate them. The Nature Futures Framework (NFF) provides a pluralistic foundation for exploring such futures by articulating conservation-oriented, human well-being, and relational value perspectives. However, scenario development still faces a major challenge: translating these value perspectives into dynamic representations of real-world decision-making that capture behavioural diversity, local context, and emergent system-wide outcomes.
Agent-based modelling (ABM) offers a powerful means to address this challenge. By explicitly representing land managers and other decision-makers as agents acting according to distinct value orientations, social norms, and environmental feedbacks, ABMs allow scenario developers to explore how NFF perspectives play out through concrete choices on the ground. This makes it possible to analyse how local behaviours collectively produce landscape-wide patterns—and how these patterns respond to different policy interventions or governance approaches.
In this study, we apply the NFF within a Europe-wide ABM-based scenario design to investigate how value-driven decision processes influence long-term land-use trajectories for biodiversity and ecosystem services. By embedding the three NFF perspectives into both land-management behaviour and societal demand, we create scenarios that reflect not just alternative visions for nature, but also the underlying pathways that lead reaching these visions.
Our work demonstrates how ABM can significantly strengthen NFF-based scenario development by addressing key challenges inherent in biodiversity futures. First, ABM enables the exploration of uncertainty and complexity by capturing heterogeneous decision-making and the feedback dynamics that emerge from interactions among actors and their environments. At the same time, it supports the integration of social, ecological, and governance dimensions, linking individual land-use choices with policy settings and environmental outcomes across multiple scales. Crucially, this approach also generates actionable, policy-relevant insights by revealing where interventions, such as incentives and regulation changes, can most effectively shift system trajectories toward futures aligned with the Nature Futures Framework.
By linking value-oriented scenarios with actor behaviour and emergent system dynamics, this study shows how ABM can operationalise the NFF and support evidence-informed pathways from local decisions to coherent European strategies for biodiversity stewardship.
How to cite: Raymond, J., Schmitt, T., Tschol, M., Arendarczyk, B., Brown, C., Burns, J., Byari, M., Diaz General, E., Hotz, R., Prestele, R., and Rounsevell, M.: Value-Driven Futures for Nature: Using the Nature Futures Framework and Agent-Based Models to Link Local Decisions with European Policy Pathways, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-689, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-689, 2026.
Islands are global hotspots of biological and cultural diversity, harboring 20% of all biota worldwide and 27% of languages, both with exceptionally high degrees of endemism. At the same time, this diversity is in peril from direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures, including climate change impacts (e.g., sea-level rise), biological invasions, land and sea use change or direct alteration of the natural systems. Due to this particular relevance for global biocultural biodiversity, islands play a crucial role in the successful implementation of the global biodiversity targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) that aims to “value, conserve, restore and wisely use biodiversity by 2050, by maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”. This vision is supported by 23 mid-term targets until 2030 that aim to “reduce threats to biodiversity”, “meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefit sharing”, and the development of “tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming”.
Here we will operationalize the NAture Futures Framework (NFF) within an island context, developing the Island Nature Futures Framework (INFF). The INFF will put a particular focus on the unique situation of islands worldwide and their challenges towards a sustainable and positive future for nature and people. We will provide guidance on how to start the scenario development process within the island/archipelago context that captures the diverse voices from the island community. Further, we discuss how the goals and targets of the KM-GBF can be translated to the island/archipelago context and which aspects of the complex social-ecological island system are likely to be affected by the implementation of these goals and targets. A final focus will be put on how progress towards the goals and targets under the different identified pathways can be effectively tracked, what monitoring (particularly focusing on the EBV and ESSV framework) and reporting schemes are available and what sectors and stakeholders need to be included to ensure successful implementation.
How to cite: Lenzner, B., Mologni, F., and Essl, F.: Operationalizing the NFF for islands - the Island Nature Futures Framework, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-109, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-109, 2026.
The doughnut framework of social foundations and ecological ceilings has become a popular visual tool to assess progress towards sustainability and inform decision making.(1) While rich in indicators for human development, the framework is less detailed on planetary health. Biodiversity breakdown, one of nine planetary boundaries, ranks amongst the ecological ceilings with most relative overshoot. Given this overshoot and the strong dependence of human well-being on nature,(2) biodiversity conservation merits a complementary doughnut.
This paper proposes such a biodiversity doughnut with an outer ring that displays threats to biodiversity and an inner ring that tracks values derived from its conservation. The outer ring depicts global direct drivers of biodiversity loss as identified by IPBES (2019) or threat information from the IUCN Red List of endangered species.(3),(4) The inner ring draws from the Nature Futures and Nature’s Contributions to People frameworks and the ecosystem services literature.(2),(3),(5)
Visual prominence of threat categories in the outer ring can reflect relative importance (e.g., by using IUCN threat frequency as percentage of the doughnut radius). Threat mitigation scenarios can be displayed in the doughnut its margin, since the biodiversity doughnut has no overshoot equivalent. The biodiversity doughnut its inner ring seems less suitable for expressing relative importance of values, since some values will be impossible to translate in comparable terms.
The biodiversity doughnut offers ample opportunity for targeted downscaling, where downscaling to (bio-)region, industry, or firm supports nature-inclusive policymaking and business strategies.(6) Downscaled doughnuts to ecosystem or taxonomic levels present tools for environmental education and science communication. The paper illustrates downscaled doughnuts for Europe, Madagascar, mangroves, and butterflies, while being sensitive to knowledge gaps and uncertainty.
Through above methodological innovations, the biodiversity doughnut provides doughnut economics a second ‘wing’ in order to accelerate metamorphosis from the growth-based caterpillar economy to a just and sustainable butterfly economy.
References
(1) Fanning and Raworth, 2025. Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09385-1.
(2) Costanza et. al., 2014. Global Environmental Change, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.002.
(3) IPBES, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3831673.
(4) IUCN. 2025. https://www.iucnredlist.org/search.
(5) Pereira et. al., 2020. People and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10146.
(6) Turner and Wills, 2022. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101180.
How to cite: Sol, J.: Towards a butterfly economy: A biodiversity doughnut of threats and values, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-135, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-135, 2026.
Finland’s National Biodiversity Strategy includes the following issues: Finland’s National Biodiversity Strategy takes into consideration European Union and global biodiversity targets and is based on the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Objectives are included in the European Union Biodiversity Strategy and United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. A preparation process for a new National Biodiversity Strategy and up to 2030 related action plan is topical. The strategy concentrates on enhancing the protection of biodiversity, promoting the restoration of degraded ecosystems and developing methods to measure the actions and their impacts. Besides the national objectives, the strategy takes into consideration the objectives of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the new European Union Biodiversity Strategy.
The strategy targets include the cessation for the loss of the biodiversity and instead, the recovery of the biodiversity. The European Union Biodiversity Strategy extends to 2030. In December 2022 the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework with four long-term goals and 23 targets.
The Treaties of the European Union do not include a common forest policy, but areas related to forests are included in many sectoral policies of the European Union. The development of certification is included in the European Union Forest Strategy. Especially, many regulations and directives in agricultural, environmental, climate and energy policies impact the use and management of forests directly or indirectly.
In accordance with the European Union Forest Strategy, the European Commission has explored the certification of forest management for recommendations of measures - which are voluntary. This means that forest owners can use them for the management of their forests if they want to do so.
Finland’s biodiversity policy in Finland includes a process for preparing a new National Biodiversity Strategy and an action plan to 2030 related to this. In addition to national objectives, the strategy takes into consideration the objectives of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the new European Union Biodiversity Strategy. The Convention on Biological Diversity is an international legal instrument. Its comprehensive objective is to encourage actions which will head to a sustainable future.
How to cite: Hyytiä, A.: Finland’s National Biodiversity Strategy , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-330, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-330, 2026.
What policies will be most effective to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, or to reach the European Biodiversity Strategy 2030 (BDS2030)? What are the possible interventions that have been studied using future forecasts so that they can inform policy? How can this information be organised in a way that is accessible and easily navigable for policymakers (and other interested stakeholders)? Here, we present the results of the analysis of an in-depth review of scenarios relevant to biodiversity and the EU BDS2030, and whether linkages can be made between policy assumptions and scenario projections to highlight policies that are likely to be effective in reaching the BDS2030. These scenarios are classified in a newly developed database that will be freely accessible to the scenario community and policy. For researchers, this database will be an opportunity to showcase their research and bring opportunities for collaboration, while for policy, this database will serve as a quick overview of scenarios and be used as a research prioritization tool. The classification of scenarios has been developed closely following the IPBES classification of drivers, scenario types, among other information captured in the database. This work is part of the current EU project BioAgora, and its task on scenarios. BioAgora aims to develop the Science Service for Biodiversity, the future Science-Policy European platform for the exchange between biodiversity knowledge and its use for policy. We will also present how the Science Service is supported by its main three functions “Transforming processes within and between science and policy” to tackle the aspects of transformative change and inclusion of all types of knowledge, “Creating and supporting thematic networks”, where it links to the different expert topical networks; and “Answering and anticipating requests”, which refers to activate the previous functions to respond to the knowledge requests from the European Commission.
How to cite: Blasi, M., Okayasu, S., Khan, M., Alkemade, R., and Brotons, L.: Developing the Science Service for Biodiversity: Using a Database on Biodiversity Scenarios to Inform EU Policy, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-879, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-879, 2026.
