FUT13 | Telling the Future: The Significance of Environmental Narratives
Telling the Future: The Significance of Environmental Narratives
Convener: Claudia Keller | Co-convener: Anna Deplazes Zemp
Orals
| Wed, 17 Jun, 08:30–11:45|Room Dischma
Posters
| Attendance Wed, 17 Jun, 13:00–14:30 | Display Wed, 17 Jun, 08:30–Thu, 18 Jun, 18:00
Orals |
Wed, 08:30
Wed, 13:00
The human capacity to imagine alternative futures—and thereby enable transformation—is deeply connected to our nature as homo narrans. Narratives and stories play a central role in shaping how we envision desirable futures for both biodiversity and people.
They are also crucial tools in the societal discourse and negotiation processes that decides which futures are realised and how.
In recent years, narratives have increasingly come into focus within biodiversity research (cf. Louder/Wyborn 2020), with various disciplines across the social sciences and humanities approaching the topic from diverse perspectives and with varying conceptual and terminological understandings. This session aims to pursue three interconnected goals:
First, we seek to foster an inter- and transdisciplinary dialogue on how narratives and stories are used in different research disciplines and in biodiversity communication. What roles do they play in shaping public discourse, policy, or conservation practice?
Second, we are particularly interested in the relationship between narrative and ethics: How do environmental narratives reveal the values people attribute to biodiversity? How do they engage with the 'rough edges' of nature—the disvalues or conflicting aspects of biodiversity? And to what extent can narratives help to shape and strengthen the psychological, cultural and moral values associated with biodiversity?
Third, we aim to discuss concrete case studies that showcase environmental narratives which imagine desirable futures for biodiversity—and pathways to reach them.
We invite contributions from scholars across the social sciences and humanities, as well as practitioners engaged in biodiversity communication, who work with or critically reflect on environmental narratives.

Orals: Wed, 17 Jun, 08:30–11:45 | Room Dischma

Chairpersons: Claudia Keller, Anna Deplazes Zemp
Session 1: Telling the Future: The Significance of Environmental Narratives: Literary and Cultural analysis
08:30–08:45
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WBF2026-184
Catherin Persing

Biodiversity debates reveal the tensions that arise when ecological processes intersect with social, economic, and political assumptions and expectations. This is especially captured in the category of ‘weeds’, to which plants are not attributed for any inherent properties, but because of their disturbance of human projects, land-use regimes, or cultural imaginaries of order (Mabey 2010). As a so-called ‘invasive’ weed, Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica), in particular, has come to epitomize this vegetal excess: its rapid spread, resistance to eradication, and impacts on ecosystems have positioned the plant as an object of intense management. The talk approaches it, therefore, as a knot in which ecological, cultural, and infrastructural concerns become entangled. This perspective opens a multiplicity of narratives, tensions, and values that conventional invasion discourse often obscures. These are brought into conversation with artistic practices and critical scholarship that seek to rethink invasiveness and its underlying assumptions.

The talk traces the shifting history of Japanese knotweed, which, since its introduction to Europe in 1825, has evolved from a valued ornamental and fodder plant into an emblem of environmental threat. Building on critical environmental humanities scholarship on invasive species and their associated values (Subramaniam 2014, 2024; Heidenreich 2021; Frawley and McCalman 2014), I examine how contemporary artistic practices grapple with the plant’s histories of global circulation, contested meanings of nativeness, and its ability to thrive in disrupted ecologies. Rather than romanticizing Japanese knotweed, these practices gesture toward more ambivalent and ethically demanding narratives of diversity.

The artistic works focus on the material performance of Japanese knotweed, thus highlighting the very traits that led to its categorization as an invasive weed. But focusing on the plant’s ‘weediness’ – its vitality, persistence, and capacity to creatively exploit human-disturbed environments – also leads to an acknowledgment of its agency. This aligns with how theorists such as Anna Tsing (2017) have conceptualized ‘weediness’, using it as a lens through which to reflect on adaptation, disturbance, and relationality. In consequence, Japanese knotweed appears not merely as an intruder, but as a species with which humans are already enmeshed in several ways, through which more plurivalent biodiversity narratives can emerge.

How to cite: Persing, C.: Knotted Histories: Re-Narrating Invasive Weeds with Fallopia japonica, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-184, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-184, 2026.

08:45–09:00
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WBF2026-221
Anna-Maria Senuysal

In the Summer 2025 edition of Orion Magazine (“The Future is Fungi”), Corey Pressman proposes the emergence of a New Naturalism, a perspective that “is causing us to reconsider, realign, reappraise, and reimagine” nature and our place in it. Pressman immediately acknowledges the ontological boundaries inherent in language, delineating nature from culture; suggesting that New Naturalism is part of the effort of “getting around those problems, that cutting that separates things from each other and us.” This presentation examines the potentials of new naturalist storytelling beyond the confines of human language and argues for the importance of affective and positively charged forms of engagement.

Firstly, I posit affective and visual new naturalist storytelling as potential mitigators of environmental crisis. As the limits of language become quickly apparent in efforts to decenter the human, visual storytelling offers a more immediate, predominantly affective entry point into nonhuman realms. I analyze two contemporary Netflix documentaries – My Octopus Teacher (2020) and Fantastic Fungi (2019) – as examples of highly effective visual storytelling that evokes kinship, empathy, and hope, allowing viewers to connect with more-than-human worlds – even such forms of life that have historically been framed as alien, threatening, or radically other in Western discourse.

Secondly, I draw on research in sociology, anthropology, and philosophy to argue that, in light of the polycrisis of the 2020s and attendant affective states of stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and powerlessness, positive affective attachment and the revived kinship with more-than-human-worlds have the potential to fundamentally shift how we relate to other forms of existence. I argue that because it offers the kind of emotive reactions we crave in our current moment (such as wonder, community, and hope) new naturalist storytelling has the potential to reach viewers who may not respond to traditional strategies such as education and confrontation with ever-worsening data on planetary health.

Finally, I propose three components of successful new naturalist storytelling as a means of imagining and paving the way toward new futures: 1.) effective/affective science communication, 2.) visibility but not centrality of the human, and 3.) visual and sensory modalities that circumvent the anthropocentric limits of language.

How to cite: Senuysal, A.-M.: Creaturely Encounters: New Naturalism and Affective Storytelling at the Edge of Humanity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-221, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-221, 2026.

09:00–09:15
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WBF2026-372
Nicole Brandstetter

This paper explores how contemporary literature functions as an ethical and imaginative laboratory for negotiating ecological collapse and envisioning alternative futures. It focuses on three novels that span speculative and realist approaches: Olga Flor’s Ein kurzes Buch zum fröhlichen Untergang (2025, own translation: “A Short Book on a Cheerful Downfall”), Carla Kaspari’s Das Ende ist beruhigend (2025, own translation: “The End Is Reassuring”), and T. C. Boyle’s Blue Skies (2024). Together, these works illuminate how environmental narratives reveal cultural and moral values attached to biodiversity while grappling with the rough edges of nature—its fragility, unpredictability, and destructive force.

Flor’s narrative combines apocalyptic imagery with satirical undertones, dramatizing the consequences of human hubris and resource exploitation. The tilted Earth axis and extreme climatic zones expose the ethical dilemmas of adaptation and survival. Yet, amidst devastation, Flor introduces moments of resilience and renewal, suggesting that hope persists even in the ruins of civilization.

Kaspari, by contrast, envisions a commodified utopia under protective domes, where “hope” becomes a marketable product and nature survives only as simulation. This scenario interrogates the moral ambiguity between survival and exploitation: What happens when ecological values are reduced to aesthetic experiences? How do psychological and cultural attachments to biodiversity endure when nature ceases to be a lived reality?

Boyle situates the climate crisis in the hyperreal present: wildfires, floods, and species loss deeply affect everyday life, while adaptation strategies oscillate between consumerist gestures and desperate attempts of genuine sustainability. Nature and weather phenomena are constantly interlinked with the destinies of the characters and their resilience strategies. His narrative foregrounds the ethical complexity of individual choices in a world in which ecological collapse is not a distant threat but an ongoing condition.

By juxtaposing these narratives, the paper argues that literature does not merely reflect ecological crises; it actively shapes discourses on resilience, adaptation, and ethical responsibility. These novels challenge dominant paradigms of progress and consumption, exposing themes of loss, fragility, and commodification while offering imaginative resources for transformative futures. Stories of collapse emerge not only as warnings but as catalysts for rethinking human-nature relations beyond technological fixes and market-driven solutions.

How to cite: Brandstetter, N.: Fiction as Ethical Laboratory: Reimagining Nature and Hope in Times of Crisis, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-372, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-372, 2026.

09:15–09:30
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WBF2026-646
Jasmin Köhler

The Bestiary of the Anthropocene (2021), compiled by Nicolas Nova and the artist collective Disnovation.org, transforms the literary genre of the bestiary into science fiction. Alongside essays by scholars such as Matthieu Duperrex and Anna Tsing, the volume contains entries on various unusual objects, presented in image and text, e.g., “Square Watermelon”, “Artificial Reefs”, “Radioactive Mushrooms”, and “Bacterial Superbugs”. In a speculative extension of Carl Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae, the volume presents the kingdoms of minerals, animals, plants—and the “Kingdom of Miscellaneous”, all equally filled with imaginative, sometimes fantastic subcategories and entries. In the age of extinction, this bestiary tells the story of our departure into a new era of bio- and geodiversity.

The talk analyzes how Disnovation.org’s Bestiary of the Anthropocene narrates present and future forms of diversity. Particular focus lies on the playful character of literary classification and imagined futures, for instance, placing “Homo Sapiens” in the taxon “Modified Animals”, or envisioning planetary pollution with species like “Plastic Flowers” and “Artificial Snow”. The talk further discusses the question of desirable futures. The volume advocates adaptive change and a new understanding of kinship; nevertheless many of the new beings appear threatening, especially entities such as “Prions” or “Nuclear Craters” or military animals such as “BigDog”. The pathways into the future shown here alter familiar scenarios through aestheticization and reinterpretation. For instance, plastic floods trigger an evolution in which living beings and garbage form symbioses, giving rise to a new taxon, “Microplastic-saturated Animals”. A planet of trash hybrids seems hardly desirable—yet these anxiety-ridden futures are presented in their own beauty.

Dr. Jasmin Köhler: Postdoctoral Researcher in the Cluster of Excellence “Imaginamics. Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagining”, Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Studied Sociology, Gender Studies, and Literary Studies; B.A. and M.A. with distinction; PhD in Modern German Literature at Humboldt University of Berlin (summa cum laude, 2024); 2019/20 Visiting Scholar at the Department of German, University of California, Berkeley; 2023/24 Research Associate at the Institute for German Literature, HU Berlin; 2024 Gastdozentur in “Modern German Literature” at the Institute for German Literature, HU Berlin. Current Research Project (Habil. NdL): Taxonomic Literature, 18th Century–Present.

How to cite: Köhler, J.: Disnovation.org’s Futuristic Bestiary: Imagining a New Era of Bio- and Geodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-646, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-646, 2026.

09:30–09:45
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WBF2026-816
Theresa Marx

Donna Haraway’s call to “make kin, not babies” advocates the radical transcendence of species boundaries in the service of an ethic of relational care. In her latest publication, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016), the ecofeminist author envisions a futuristic world on the cusp of ecological balance by probing modes of multispecies entanglement. The Chthulucene, Haraway’s term for an emergent epoch defined not by human exceptionalism but by situated, tentacular, and ongoing interrelations, rests firmly on anti-patriarchal, anti-sexist, and anti-racist intellectual frameworks. Her writing breaks out of traditional epistemologies and explores the possibility of relationships with “diverse earthwide tentacular powers and forces … including the more-than-human, other-than-human, inhuman, and human-as humus” (Haraway 101). This vision challenges dominant Anthropocene narratives that cast humanity as an isolated and privileged agent and simultaneously obscure the interdependence of all earth-bound beings.

A concrete example of Haraway’s ethic appears in the final chapter, “The Camille Stories.” Here, the author sketches out a speculative world in which prospective children are biologically merged with non-human companion species before birth. In order to relieve the strain of human overpopulation on the environment and simultaneously deepen affective bonds across different forms of life, this genetic redesign results in a demographically stable, multispecies community over five successive generations.

This talk positions Haraway’s text within contemporary ecofeminist debates and demonstrates how literary imagination functions as a critical intervention against the deterministic pessimism of future-oriented Anthropocene discourses. Rather than echoing growth-centric economic paradigms or feeding into climate change denialism, narratives like “The Camille Stories” generate alternative epistemologies that reveal entrenched power relations and interrogate the problematic values that underpin the status quo. As tools in societal discourse, they thereby subtly relocate the site of theory and knowledge production to the realm of speculative fabulation and imaginative world-making, where they cultivate forms of collective resilience.

How to cite: Marx, T.: Make Kin, Not Babies: Literary Futures for the Chthulucene, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-816, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-816, 2026.

Chairpersons: Anna Deplazes Zemp, Claudia Keller
Session 2: Telling the Future: The Significance of Environmental Narratives: Communication and Transdisciplinarity
10:30–10:45
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WBF2026-364
Phoebe Barnard PhD and John Bowey

In these crossroads of human history and the increasingly likely collapse of globalized western civilization, what are the narratives for biodiversity and ecosystems, and all the things that support or undermine them? For societies and power dynamics? For economic and political systems? For mindsets and paradigms? And in particular, for human agency in destabilized climate trajectories of the future - from Hothouse Earth to the rapidly weakening AMOC?

Our evolutionary history as social primate storytellers has seemed to rely more on individual hero's journey narratives, and less on kinship collaboratives. But increasingly, our ability to stretch across cultures and tap into myths, science, traditional knowledge and civilizational uprising narratives allows us to infer epochal stories from myths and archaeological records, and to create new stories that bridge grim scientific realities with uplifting and energizing narratives about agency, determination, focus, collaboration, and ideally, triumph even in dark times. We will need these narratives to take us into a more purposeful future.

In this paper, we will use a variety of current events and projects. These include our own work -- in The Climate Restorers (2025) global documentary series, in the Global Restoration Collaborative, in driving co-creation of planetary and societal futures, and in supporting world governments to govern more proactively and wisely in high-risk events like AMOC collapse -- as well as insights from others' new thinking about future civilizations, not least Luke Kemp's 2025 book "Goliath's Curse: the History and Future of Societal Collapse." 

Political and cultural tribalism, inequality, disinformation, AI and autocracy are all poisons rooted deeply in the messy landscape we inhabit as scientists and humans co-creating a future civilization – one which centres Nature, and each other, in our systems and mindsets.  Our purpose is to bring these harsh realities to this conference to help stake the stark moral imperatives of our time as humans, scientists, stewards, and storytellers. 

If discussion time allows, we will engage the audience in co-creating narrative arcs which can build agency across cultures and ideologies at the same time as building courage, risk foresight, resilience, ecosystem and climate restoration, and social reconnection. 

How to cite: Barnard PhD, P. and Bowey, J.: Storytelling in a risky and unpredictable future of civilizational shift, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-364, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-364, 2026.

10:45–11:00
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WBF2026-710
Anja Rekeszus

In this paper, I will present the outcomes of and reflections on my project “Retelling the Urban Fox: A Collaborative Fairy Tale”, which I conducted as an Inclusion, Participation and Engagement fellow at the School of Advanced Studies, London. Through participatory, creative and digital research methods, this project sought to uncover the ways in which the writing of collaborative fairy tales with other community members influences participants’ perceptions of urban biodiversity, with a focus on urban foxes. It recruited 30 adult participants from the borough of Southwark and consisted of three stages: an initial survey assessing participants’ pre-existing associations with and emotional reactions to urban foxes; a one-day storytelling workshop, run by artist Elizabeth Dearnley, which resulted in the compilation of collaborative fairy tales about urban foxes; and a final evaluation of how the participants’ associations and emotions surrounding urban foxes had changed after the workshop.

The findings of the project give a broad range of insights into how writing fairy tales can influence humans’ perceptions of urban foxes. For example, many participants joined the project with an ambivalent and anthropocentric view on foxes, finding them “beautiful” and “cute” while at the same time perceiving them as “noisy” and “a nuisance”. These perceptions changed after the storytelling workshop: literary and sentiment analysis of survey responses indicate that participants became less interested in the foxes' aesthetic qualities, and more interested in their habitat and behaviours ("curious", "resilient", "catches mice"). At the same time participants often made a fox the protagonist of their tales, using their perspective to explore imagined, oftentimes utopian versions of their community. This hints at the possibility of leveraging urban foxes and other animals to support communities in envisioning desirable futures. In their surveys, participants said that the collaborative writing process had caused them to pay increased attention to their encounters with foxes and other animals, and had sparked curiosity about their ways of life. It also connected to them to an “imagined community” of other humans looking out for foxes, strengthening their feeling of a shared space and community.

 

 

 

 

How to cite: Rekeszus, A.: Retelling the Urban Fox: Collaborative Storytelling for Urban Biodiversity , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-710, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-710, 2026.

11:00–11:15
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WBF2026-776
Boris Previsic

With the dawn of the "new era", even sleepy Switzerland saw the expansion of new renewables gain momentum at the political level. The “Solar Express” initiative aimed to close the winter gap within a few years and thus reduce fossil fuel-driven electricity production by promoting solar installations on high-altitude alpine open spaces. It is interesting to note that this climate protection initiative was met with resistance, particularly from environmental groups. They argued that the “industrialization” of the landscape directly threatened biodiversity, and they underscored this finding with visual imagery. The need to preserve the “intact landscape” was the killing argument for many projects that would have made an important contribution to climate protection. 

The Solar Express initiative will only achieve a small fraction of what would have been necessary to have a noticeable effect. As a result, this federal initiative has once again slowed down, and Switzerland is falling behind with its climate targets. In the meantime, however, we have learned that it makes more economic sense not to place the panels too high up in the Alps. The real lesson was that climate and biodiversity protection can only be reconciled through systemic considerations. This requires a logical connection and, above all, a storyline that begins with planetary boundaries and ends with water protection thanks to solar energy. Complexity cannot be solved visually, but narratively. Just because a landscape looks “intact” doesn't mean its biodiversity is “intact.”

Different approaches are needed to narratively disentangle this myth in the narrow focus on landscape conservation and nature conservation. These include a geological awareness of deep time, a trained sense of scale and scale effects, a multisensory approach to landscape, but also a way of thinking that no longer understands biodiversity solely in spatial terms, but rather based on the lifelines represented by watercourses. Pure observation has had its day; what is needed is polyphonic, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary storytelling today.

 

 

How to cite: Previsic, B.: Narratives beyond the visual: Bridging climate and biodiversity protection, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-776, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-776, 2026.

11:15–11:30
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WBF2026-810
Vincent Neumann and Benjamin Bollmann

The Swiss-Amazonian Mapping reframes Amazonia from a distant “forest-at-risk” into a living knowledge system and innovation ecosystem—one that generates pathways for biodiversity stewardship, climate resilience, and equitable development. Coordinated by Swissnex in Brazil, the mapping curates a cross-sector network of Swiss actors working with Amazonian partners across research, innovation, finance, culture, and public policy. The report assembles initiatives spanning Indigenous-led conservation technology, biodiversity science, regenerative agriculture, forest-positive value chains, circular economy, arts-based inquiry, and science diplomacy.

 

As an environmental narrative, the mapping proposes a shift in imagination: Amazonia is not only a site of extraction or emergency, but a planetary laboratory where scientific methods, traditional knowledge, and creative practices can meet on equal footing. The featured actors are connected less by a single theme than by a shared ethics of engagement—respect for Indigenous and local rights, collaboration over appropriation, transparency and traceability, and a commitment to keeping forests standing while strengthening livelihoods. Brazilian institutions and communities are credited not as “beneficiaries,” but as co-authors of outcomes: they shape research questions, governance approaches, monitoring practices, and culturally grounded solutions.

 

Positioned within the session Telling the Future, this case study shows how narratives can influence both policy and practice by redefining what counts as “innovation” and who is recognized as an innovator. The mapping foregrounds tensions—between conservation and development, global finance and local sovereignty, visibility and simplification—and treats them as “rough edges” that require accountable design, not celebratory storytelling. By creating a single entry point to Swiss–Amazonian collaborations and making them legible as a coherent ecosystem, the report offers a practical tool for partnership-building while also advancing a moral narrative: a future for biodiversity depends on reciprocity, plural knowledge systems, and the ability to imagine prosperity without deforestation.

 

This contribution invites dialogue on how curated ecosystem mappings can function as narrative infrastructures—shaping perception, ethics, and action—toward desirable futures for Amazonia and the planet.

How to cite: Neumann, V. and Bollmann, B.: From Rainforest-at-Risk to Planetary Laboratory: The Swiss–Amazonian Mapping as Narrative Infrastructure for Biodiversity Futures, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-810, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-810, 2026.

11:30–11:45
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WBF2026-396
Alexandra Korcheva, Gabriela Popova, Nikol Yovcheva, Teodor Metodiev, Desislava Raykova, Peter Bozakov, Boris Barov, and Lyubomir Penev

As global challenges intensify, translating scientific knowledge into effective policy action has become more crucial - and more complex - than ever. Within the European biodiversity research landscape, numerous research projects funded by various EU mechanisms operate at the science-policy interface (SPI), striving not only to produce policy-relevant knowledge but also to ensure it reaches decision-makers and relevant stakeholder groups in accessible, actionable formats. Yet, coordination, collaboration and communication efforts across projects remain fragmented, and opportunities for mutual amplification are often underused.

This session explores how science communication through a joint narrative can become a driver of collaboration and increase impact among policy-oriented projects working at the SPI. Building on the experiences of projects such as BioAgora, CO-OP4CBD, RESPIN, SELINA, OBSGESSION and REST-COAST, the session will present concrete examples of good practices for:

  • framing complex research findings into messages relevant to policymakers,
  • developing shared communication narratives across projects,
  • designing science-policy events that foster genuine dialogue rather than one-way dissemination, and
  • co-developing tools and campaigns that strengthen the visibility of the European biodiversity SPI.

The discussion will highlight the role of science communication as an important factor in biodiversity SPI processes - beyond dissemination - by facilitating shared understanding, co-creation of output and cross-project synergies. The presentation will showcase lessons learned from narrative communication, including through tailored campaigns such as #Science4Biodiversity and #TransformativeChange4Biodiversity, and reflect on how coordinated communication can amplify the collective impact of EU-funded efforts.

Beyond techniques and tools, the session will emphasise on the power of narratives as a crucial connector across scientific, policy and society. Narrative-based communication helps translate abstract concepts such as biodiversity loss, biodiversity targets, or transformative change into relatable stories that resonate with policymakers, practitioners and the wider public. By weaving coherent narratives across projects, the European biodiversity SPI build shared frames of reference, reduce cognitive and institutional barriers to engagement, and create a sense of collective purpose. Such narratives foster trust, strengthen legitimacy and support long-term relationships between diverse stakeholder groups, ultimately helping them navigate complexity together and co-create efficient biodiversity solutions.

Keywords: 

science communication, science-policy interface, Horizon Europe, collaboration, transformative change, stakeholder engagement, biodiversity

How to cite: Korcheva, A., Popova, G., Yovcheva, N., Metodiev, T., Raykova, D., Bozakov, P., Barov, B., and Penev, L.: Communicating Science to Policy: The Perspective of EU-funded Research Projects for Building a Joint Narrative, Collaboration and Impact Across the Biodiversity Science-Policy Interface, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-396, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-396, 2026.

Posters: Wed, 17 Jun, 13:00–14:30

Display time: Wed, 17 Jun, 08:30–Thu, 18 Jun, 18:00
WBF2026-53
Zélie Stauffer, Norman Backhaus, and Anna Deplazes Zemp

The concept of relational values (RVs) has, in recent years and within the field of environmental ethics, been proposed to account for the personal, cultural, and contextual values that emerge within specific human-nature relationships. (Chan et al., 2016; Pascual et al., 2017; Himes and Muraca, 2018; Anderson et al., 2022). While RVs share elements with both intrinsic and instrumental values, their concept is able to go beyond this traditional distinction between instrumental and intrinsic values (Deplazes-Zemp, 2024): RVs emphasize the reciprocal interactions between humans and nature, and seek to understand the values that foster a deeper sense of connectedness with the natural world.

The study I aim to present focuses on the community of birdwatchers, a group whose practices embody attentive, and long-term engagement with nature (Randler, 2023): qualities that may inspire for sustainable human-nature relationships. To understand how birdwatchers value nature and what their RVs are composed of, we adopted a quantitative, narrative-based approach (Van der Merwe et al., 2019).

Narrative inquiries enabled us to capture participants’ worldviews: indeed, the way of telling a story, or sharing an experience, reflects how people make sense of this moment and its context (O’Neill, Holland and Light, 2007; McShane, 2012). More precisely, the participants of our study were invited to recall and write about a personal birdwatching experience and to answer a series of questions related to this narrative. This narrative-based survey method enabled us to capture the contextual dimension of lived experiences while allowing for statistical analysis of RVs patterns.

A total of 544 birdwatchers across Switzerland participated in the study. Statistical analyses revealed several distinct types of RVs, each characterized by specific combinations of contributions to and perceived benefits from nature. These results provide novel insights into the diversity and structure of RVs among nature observers. Beyond its empirical findings, this research demonstrates the potential of narrative-based quantitative methods for empirical environmental ethics. Ultimately, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the relational constituents necessary to foster reciprocal and respectful human–nature relationships; relationships that are essential for a sustainable future.

How to cite: Stauffer, Z., Backhaus, N., and Deplazes Zemp, A.: Understanding Human-Nature Relationships through Narrative-Based Surveys, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-53, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-53, 2026.