This session invites contributions from researchers and practitioners involved in long-term, integrative biodiversity research, particularly those exploring how such knowledge can inform future-oriented thinking and action. We are interested in approaches that explicitly engage with questions of desired futures, scenario development, or pathways for social-ecological transformation. Of particular interest are cases that highlight how embedded, inter- and transdisciplinary research can help anticipate developments, navigate uncertainty, and support adaptive governance.
Examples from platforms such as the Kili-SES project in Tanzania and the Biodiversity Exploratories in Germany will serve as starting points to discuss how long-term, place-based research can contribute to collective narratives and informed decision-making for biodiversity. We welcome submissions from other LTSER sites and comparable initiatives that combine ecological and societal dimensions to co-create knowledge for sustainable futures.
Understanding and sustaining biodiversity futures requires approaches that integrate ecological and social dimensions over the long term. The Kili-SES (Kilimanjaro social-ecological system) platform in Tanzania illustrates how Long-Term Social-Ecological Research (LTSER) can generate such integrative knowledge. Building on more than a decade of interdisciplinary collaboration, Kili-SES combines ecological monitoring, social research, and participatory scenario work within a shared conceptual framework inspired by the IPBES approach. A systematic plot design that captures both an elevation and a land-use gradient enables consistent long-term data collection and supports analyses linking biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and nature’s contributions to people (NCP). This framework allows the project to trace connections from biodiversity through NCP to human well-being and governance, while continually refining methods and insights through long-term engagement with people and place.
Recent work in Kili-SES has advanced this integration in several ways. A novel conceptual framework connects ecological network analysis with NCP supply, revealing how species interactions and human demand jointly shape the importance of biodiversity for NCP. Applying this framework to the extensive ecological and social datasets accumulated since the project’s inception allows us to identify keystone species for NCP provision and to anticipate how network changes may alter local livelihoods under future land-use or climate scenarios.
Scenario-building workshops conducted in the project allowed different local social actors to jointly identify key drivers of change and to co-develop contrasting future scenarios for the Kilimanjaro region. In the upcoming phase, these participatory dialogues will expand toward co-developing pathways for resilient and just human–wildlife coexistence—illustrated by a case study on fruit bats that integrates ecological, epidemiological, and social perspectives on both beneficial and detrimental NCP.
Together, these examples demonstrate how sustained, place-based, and interdisciplinary research can bridge ecological processes and societal aspirations. LTSER platforms like Kili-SES provide the scientific continuity and participatory grounding needed to envision and navigate toward sustainable biodiversity futures.
How to cite: Lehnen, L., Mpinga, A., Mauki, D., Degano, M. E., Bianco, G., Koggani, K. D., Tschapka, M., Schleuning, M., Kinabo, N. R., Witchalls, S., and Sommer, S.: From biodiversity data to desirable futures: Insights from the LTSER platform Kili-SES at Mt. Kilimanjaro, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-133, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-133, 2026.
The governance of natural resources is rarely made spatially explicit. Although maps are routinely used in spatial planning, they usually do not explicitly state the formal and informal rules and forms of governance that apply to different zones. Crucially, spatial planning maps do not provide information on land users’ and other stakeholders’ compliance with rules or enforcement effectiveness. Yet all of these elements have a direct and often significant impact on social-ecological indicators, such as biodiversity, above-ground biomass, and agricultural yield. In this contribution, we make the formal and informal rules that apply to land and water governance in the Kilimanjaro region spatially explicit, covering all main land-use types and major water bodies. We shed light on different types of rules (e.g., access, ownership, management, extraction), forms of governance (e.g., monitoring, sanctioning), and stakeholders (e.g., land users, state authorities, and extension services) and their spatial dimensions. These include i) administrative borders (e.g., inside/outside the National Park, ii) biophysical features (e.g., the 60-m-rule along open watercourses), iii) land-use types or practices (e.g., fertilizer and pesticide use for certain crops; water use regulations), and iv) socio-cultural borders (e.g., Kihamba - traditional customs governing the management and inheritance of land owned by Chagga people). We provide information on both formal institutions (rules-in-form) and informal institutions (rules-in-use). Rules-in-form are mainly derived from analyzing relevant regulatory frameworks, ordinances, and other policy documents, but also from stakeholder interviews. The analysis of rules-in-use is based on stakeholder interviews and a village-level survey aimed specifically at eliciting local knowledge and ease of compliance with regulations, providing crucial insights on the – perceived – effectiveness of the formal institutions in place. Our spatially explicit representation of institutions and governance is a novel tool with practical use for policymaking. Such a map on institutions and governance provides spatially-explicit explanatory variables for the analysis of landscape-level social-ecological indicators and for the prediction/development of future (land use) scenarios. Such a map can shed light on local human-nature relationships and can inform participatory processes aimed at eliciting desired futures and transformation pathways.
How to cite: Junquera, V., Schleyer, C., and Thiel, A.: Making institutions and governance spatially explicit , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-230, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-230, 2026.
Understanding how socio-cultural dynamics influence biodiversity is essential for anticipating long-term developments in cultural landscapes. While direct drivers such as land-use change are well-studied, indirect societal trends including value change, societal transformation, demographic change, health, digitalization and technology, and mobility remain less explored despite their potential to shape biodiversity trajectories. This study investigates how these trends act as indirect drivers of biodiversity change in German cultural landscapes and how they can inform future-oriented landscape management.
The research is conducted within the large-scale and long-term ‘Biodiversity Exploratories’ research platform through the project SoCuLa ‘Socio-cultural Drivers of Biodiversity Change in Germany’. Twenty-five indicators were developed to operationalize the six societal trends, and region-specific morphological matrices were constructed to explore potential combinations of indicator expressions. Participatory workshops with representatives of key stakeholder groups in three regions were used to co-develop pessimistic, optimistic, and desirable scenarios, while explicitly considering temporal horizons and contextual uncertainties. Morphological analysis provided a framework for integrating qualitative and quantitative knowledge to examine multidimensional social-ecological challenges.
The workshops generated region-specific scenario sets that illustrate plausible pathways of land use and cultural landscape evolution under varying socio-cultural conditions. Subsequent evaluation through an online survey correlated these scenarios with local prioritization for ecosystem services and regional multifunctionality. Preliminary analyses suggest that, based on previous studies, cultural landscapes currently meet regional demands for ecosystem services, and it is expected that desirable scenarios will generally continue to fulfill these demands in the future. However, assessing the scenarios rated as most likely may reveal potential mismatches between projected land-use pathways and local ecosystem service prioritization.
These findings highlight the importance of integrating socio-cultural trends into biodiversity planning and demonstrate how participatory scenario development can support adaptive governance. By linking societal trends, stakeholder perspectives, and ecosystem service data, the study provides a robust framework for anticipating long-term biodiversity futures and informing sustainable landscape management.
How to cite: Peter, S., Stoller, S., Trujillo Frede, C., Glock Brown, G., Hummel, D., Nieß, S., Trost, L., Krumm, C., and Mehring, M.: From Societal Trends to Future Landscapes: Participatory Scenarios and Ecosystem Service Implications in Germany , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-438, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-438, 2026.
