This session explores how the overarching objectives, principles, and strategies of the IPBES TCA can be put into action—examining emerging practices, partnerships, governance innovations, and knowledge systems that support systemic shifts toward just and sustainable futures for nature and people. Contributors should include specific reference to the IPBES TCA. We welcome practice and research examples, covering topics including, but not limited to:
● The underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline, including disconnection from nature
● What transformative change looks like in practice.
● How different approaches to transformative change seek to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.
● How entrenched power structures and institutions can be navigated or reshaped.
● The role of co-production, participation, and diverse knowledge systems (including Indigenous and local knowledge).
● The role of Indigenous peoples in transformative change
● The role of creativity and imagination for transformative change
● Experiences in enacting pathways, strategies and actions for transformative change, including reconnection with nature
The Inter-governmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Transformative Change Assessment Summary for Policy Makers argues that foregrounding plurality and inclusion can help guide processes of transformative change for social-ecological justice. Here, one aspect of plurality and inclusion is engagement with, and valuing of, diverse knowledge systems. Within the context of nature conservation, this could not only transform conservation itself but also enable conservation to enact transformative change: a fundamental, system-wide reconfigurations of human-nature interactions. Existing frameworks e.g. Tengö (2014, 2017) attempt to reconcile plural knowledges in a conservation context but are often formulated by academics and do not engage with how power relations are interwoven with, and emerge from, such processes in practice. Thus, this research asks what practices could enable UK nature conservation to better engage with diverse forms of evidence and varied knowledge systems while engaging with power relations? This is explored using a Participatory Action Research approach with a major UK conservation programme while also journeying towards decoloniality. Conversations, interviews, observations and reflective journalling fed into a Forum Theatre workshop undertaken collaboratively with Dr Eirini Saratsi (Natural England) and Professor Erika Hughes (University of the Arts London). Preliminary analysis shows how a web of values, dimensions of context and frames of power influence what and how diverse knowledges are engaged. Dimensions of context include structural, social, and embodied contexts; frames of power refer to different philosophical understandings of power as per Moon (2025). Cultivating greater awareness and understanding of this web in which conservation practitioners and their partners operate, as well as increased reflexivity of ones own values and context, could facilitate intentional actions that value and engage with plural knowledges. Additionally, the analysis shows that relational, process-oriented working practices must be foregrounded to enable meaningful dialogue between knowledges, epistemic communities and so, conservation partners. These shifts would enable nature conservation to embody the transformative changes needed for socio-environmental justice.
How to cite: Lawrence, A.: Conservation in transformation: Engaging diverse knowledges and power relations in UK nature conservation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-78, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-78, 2026.
The IPBES thematic assessment report on “Transformative Change And Options For Achieving The 2050 Vision For Biodiversity” identified “agriculture” as one of the main sectors that heavily contribute to biodiversity loss. Halting and reversing biodiversity declines requires overcoming context-specific challenges and incorporating co-creation principles including equity, respect, recognition and collaboration.
Agro-ecological approaches that support both biodiversity conservation and sustainable production are increasingly being adopted in agriculture systems to enhance sustainability and future-proof farming . Interventions to boost beneficial biodiversity including practices that help enhance pollinator communities or natural enemies of crop pests are well studied, and form an integral part of agri-environmental schemes particularly in the Global North across Europe and North America. However, implementing such interventions in smallholder farming systems without policy support, poses specific challenges, particularly when there is a dearth of collated local evidence and knowledge further compounded by a lack of financial incentives for implementation.
Here we present case studies from two projects in India funded through the Global Challenges Research Fund - one focussed on enhancing pollinator communities and crop pollination and the other focussed on boosting natural enemies of pests to reduce crop damages and reduce agrochemical input. Both case studies are founded on effective knowledge exchange and interactions with local smallholders to co-design floral interventions and co-develop context specific solutions that provided ecological as well as socio-economic benefits. Our results show that context specific floral resources can boost beneficial biodiversity including natural enemies of pests and insect pollinators. These in turn contribute to enhanced ecosystem services, better yield and quality of produce and improved livelihoods. The interventions also provided co-benefits in the form of added income and / or meeting household nutritional needs. The smallholder farmers involved in these projects have also enabled wider adoption of these practices through peer-to-peer sharing of best practice amongst their local networks to help enhance both biodiversity and livelihoods in their communities.
Our projects provide a conservation evidence narrative highlighting how transformative change for a just and sustainable world can be achieved through engagement with local communities; respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships, and adaptive learning and action.
How to cite: Senapathi, D., Garratt, M., Willcox, B., Dhandapani, S., and Raj, R.: Co-designing agro-ecological approaches with smallholder farming communities to boost biodiversity and livelihoods in the Global South – a tale of two projects, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-198, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-198, 2026.
Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Karoonjhar Mountains provide a grounded framework for transformative biodiversity conservation as sacred ecological landscapes face escalating pressures. Karoonjhar, an ancient granite mountain range in Nagarparkar, southeastern Pakistan, supports endangered species, migratory birds, freshwater sources, and fragile habitats. These ecological networks are deeply intertwined with the cultural practices and worldviews of the Indigenous Hindu communities, whose rituals, seasonal practices, and cosmologies have guided stewardship for generations. Industrial mining, political marginalization, and erosion of traditional knowledge now threaten this interdependence, highlighting the urgency of systemic shifts in how communities relate to and care for their ecosystems.
This presentation showcases a community-led initiative in which local artists, activists, and elders collaboratively document oral histories, ritual knowledge, ecological practices, and sacred narratives using participatory audiovisual methods. Framed as both a governance and ecological tool, this approach integrates creativity and imagination, offering an innovative alternative to conventional conservation or research methods. The living archive, governed under local cultural protocols, strengthens intergenerational knowledge transmission, amplifies marginalized voices, and provides community-authored evidence for engagement with regional authorities, addressing power asymmetries in decision-making.
Preliminary findings reveal that Indigenous cosmologies encode ecological insights: seasonal rituals guide water and land-use management, folk narratives transmit habitat knowledge, and collective ceremonies foster social cohesion critical for resisting environmental degradation. Early outcomes demonstrate tangible impact: community-led resistance through music, folklore, and culturally significant artwork contributed to the halting of mining operations in major ecologically sensitive zones, the seasonal revival of wetlands through local water management interventions, increased vegetation, and formal recognition of Indigenous stewardship in regional governance. In addition, the documentation process has amplified underrepresented narratives of Karoonjhar’s sacred and historical significance, generating visibility in mainstream media.
The Karoonjhar experience illustrates how centering Indigenous knowledge, cultural continuity, and participatory creative practices can reshape biodiversity decision-making. By supporting locally controlled knowledge systems and community-led governance, this model offers a transferable framework for achieving just, sustainable, and culturally grounded ecological outcomes while fostering systemic, transformative change.
How to cite: Habib, H.: Indigenous Guardianship of the Karoonjhar Mountains: Community-led Knowledge Preservation as a Tool for Transformative Biodiversity Conservation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-239, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-239, 2026.
In 2020, the global uprising against racial injustice forced every sector of society, including conservation, to confront long-standing patterns of exclusion. In southern Africa, this reckoning was amplified by a widely criticised racialised study questioning why Black South Africans “avoid” biological sciences. My response, The Achilles Heel of Conservation, argued that the central failure is not one of individual interest or material pursuit, but of systemic design. I asked the question: Who are we conserving Africa for if the majority, especially its youth, are excluded or not part of the solutions?
Five years later, despite important efforts being made, the structural work needed is still in its infancy. The political moment for these discussions has passed. Meanwhile, rising alt-right ideologies in the global North and their growing influence in Africa threaten progress toward transformation. These dynamics mirror the concerns of the IPBES TCA in the rising global inequality, the disconnect of people from nature and failing economic systems that compromise biodiversity and planetary health.
Drawing on scientific publications I have coauthored and case studies from my work with young people through my youth organisation Matabeleland Youth Conservation Society, the Gorongosa Restoration Project and the Nature Environment and Wildlife Filmmakers community (NEWF), I share lived experiences in devising pathways for transformative change that centre African women and youth. This talk will present and explore grassroots efforts and challenges to reimagining equitable partnerships, alternative funding models that democratise access to the biodiversity economy, refocusing narratives through storytelling led by Africans and elevating indigenous knowledge and experience. The success of the IPBES TCA call depends on co-creation and collaboration on such initiatives led by local people, and designing and supporting programs that grant opportunities to reconnect African youth and future generations with nature. This talk highlights the importance of the IPBES TCA in practice and how it can be best implemented in Africa. Biodiversity conservation requires not only ecological interventions, but social, cultural, political and economic changes rooted in justice, representation and empowerment of marginalised communities.
How to cite: Nkomo, M. N.: The Future is African: Youth at the Heart of Transformative Change for Biodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-359, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-359, 2026.
Ecosystem restoration is central to global efforts to reverse biodiversity loss. Yet, its long-term effectiveness and equity is frequently undermined when interventions overlook the worldviews, value systems, and culturally grounded motivations that shape human–nature relationships. Responding to the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment (TCA) call for shifting views and practices, this study examines how narrative innovation—rooted in local value system and cultural context—can foster inner and collective transformations that enable community-led pathways for biodiversity-inclusive grassland restoration on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau.
Over 70% of the grasslands on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau have been degraded to various degrees, posing threats to biodiversity, ecological security, and pastoral livelihoods. Grassland restoration activities were launched to combat this trend; however, local communities exhibited different levels of participation in these restoration initiatives. Using Q methodology and in-depth interviews in two pastoral communities, we identified eight distinct value–attitude orientations toward grassland degradation and restoration. In the community showing stronger motivation and participation, a group of local “Active Agents” emerged as key drivers of transformative action. By crafting value-inclusive narratives that align restoration practices with local worldviews and values—emphasizing compassion toward sentient beings, reciprocity with nature, and moral responsibility for land stewardship—these actors reshape how local pastoralists interpret degradation, responsibility, and appropriate restoration practices.
These narrative innovations represent a concrete pathway for diversifying ways of thinking, one of the insights highlighted by the IPBES TCA. The resulting shifts in views translate into behavioral changes, enabling the integration of restoration practices with locally meaningful principles. Such alignment enhances acceptance, strengthens collective commitment, and creates enabling conditions for scaling restoration efforts.
Overall, the findings underscore that transformative change for biodiversity requires culturally resonant narratives that mobilize local values and foster renewed relationships between humans and other-than-human beings. Supporting these community-led narrative pathways is essential to enhance just, inclusive, and sustainable restoration approaches and achieve effective outcomes.
How to cite: Dai, H., Li, L., Lü, Z., and Riley, M.: Transforming views and practices through narrative innovation: community pathways for biodiversity-inclusive grassland restoration on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-733, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-733, 2026.
Indigenous Nations hold generations of knowledge, governance systems, and relational values that illuminate pathways toward a more just and biodiverse future. As we are called to Lead Transformation Together, and as the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment (TCA) urges system-wide reconfigurations of human–nature relationships, Indigenous Peoples offer insights and lived practices capable of addressing the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss. This presentation shares an Indigenous perspective on advancing global biodiversity goals through economic transformation, drawing on outcomes from the Economic Futures Summit 2025 and its four pathways to action: Bringing Ideas to Market: Who’s Ready for a Deal?; Backbone of Indigenous Economies; Indigenous Leadership and Capacity; and Indigenous Economic Visions.
At their core, these pathways operationalize TCA principles by transforming societal values, reshaping governance systems, and addressing entrenched economic structures that drive nature’s decline. Rooted in relational worldviews—responsibility to land, kinship with all beings, and collective well-being—they provide grounded, practical examples of what transformative change looks like in practice. They also show how co-production, ethical space, and diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge, can generate more sustainable futures.
The pathway Backbone of Indigenous Economies demonstrates how Nations are creating sustainable economic scenarios across multiple sectors including land based initiatives grounded in cultural and worldview aligned with regenerative relationships to “all our relations”. Indigenous Leadership and Capacity showcases emerging governance innovations and human-capital investments essential for navigating and reshaping the power structures identified in the TCA. Through Bringing Ideas to Market, the Summit uplifts entrepreneurs developing nature-positive solutions grounded in reciprocity and ecological stewardship. Finally, Indigenous Economic Visions offers a forward-looking blueprint for economies that elevate cultural identity, relational wealth, and intergenerational responsibility.
Together, these pathways reveal how Indigenous Peoples are not only protecting ecosystems but redesigning economic and governance systems to strengthen human–nature connections and dismantle root causes of biodiversity loss. This presentation showcases advances that are achieving the ambitions of the IPBES TCA while centering Indigenous values, leadership, and economic self-determination. The Economic Futures Summit Pathway elucidate practical, scalable models for enacting transformative change—demonstrating that when we uplift Indigenous-led innovation and institutions, systemic transformation becomes both achievable and collectively led.
How to cite: Bridge, G., Rattling Leaf, J., and Tallis, H.: Indigenous Economic Futures - Transformative Change Praxis, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-864, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-864, 2026.
Human-wildlife coexistence is increasingly central to biodiversity action in Europe’s shared landscapes. While conservation policies and protected areas have supported wildlife recovery, including large carnivores, coexistence remains challenging in many regions. In this talk, we present how we applied IPBES TCA strategies in practice, demonstrating how local governance innovation and knowledge co-creation (strategies 4 & 5) can drive transformative change for human-wildlife coexistence.
Our Participatory Action Research (PAR) examines how integrating local human and wildlife perspectives into coexistence planning can foster a paradigm shift: moving from local communities relying on conservation authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to actively leading coexistence strategies addressing more-than-human needs. Brown bears both shape and depend on ecosystems in ways that mirror human-ecosystem interactions, with possible negative impacts from bears to humans and vice versa. We present a case study from the Italian Apennines, where people coexist with the critically endangered Apennine brown bear (Ursus arctos marsicanus). Here, the NGO Rewilding Apennines leads the Bear-Smart Corridor project, establishing “bear-smart communities” to empower local communities to govern coexistence in areas of bear population expansion.
We focus on three evolving bear-smart communities, where bears are currently returning and coexistence governance is weak. In these communities, we collaborated with three municipal coexistence committees composed of farmers, hunters, beekeepers, administrators, tourism operators, and “bear representatives.” Committees identified challenges, co-designed actions, and co-developed municipal coexistence strategies through iterative cycles of workshops, participatory spatial mapping, and implementation of coexistence measures. Workshops combined social-ecological system (SES) network mapping, including bears as social actors, with the Three Horizons visioning approach to explore human-bear-ecosystem dependencies and pathways toward desired future coexistence. Outcomes included place-based municipal plans for coexistence measures with defined locations and responsibilities for three years (e.g., bear-proof bins and fences, coexistence festivals, and education initiatives).
Our case study shows that municipal committees adopting more-than-human perspectives can draw on deep local ecological knowledge and SES frameworks to design context-specific coexistence strategies, while creating institutional space for wildlife actors. Such PAR approaches can support bottom-up transformation of human-wildlife coexistence that values both human and non-human quality of life.
How to cite: Mayer, P. and Grêt-Regamey, A.: Transforming human-bear coexistence from the bottom up: Integrating human and non-human animal perspectives into local coexistence strategies, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-181, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-181, 2026.
Insect pollinators are essential to ecosystem functioning and food production, yet evidence points to widespread declines in their abundance and diversity, including on the European continent. Agricultural landscapes are a key space where drivers of decline, such as land-use intensification and pesticide use, intersect with opportunities for recovery through pollinator-friendly farming. The Horizon Europe project Agri4Pol aims to help transform agriculture from a pressure on pollinators to a positive force for their restoration.
The goal of the project and of this paper aligns with a key message from the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment, which highlights sustainable farming transitions as a pathway to support biodiversity, protect habitats, and provide good quality of life on Earth. Framing pollinator-friendly farming solutions as part of such transformations, we focus on how these practices are perceived and put into practice in different European contexts. We consider how different views, structures and practices might change at multiple decision-making levels.
In this paper, we present preliminary findings from a multi-actor process designed to understand the different perceived co-benefits and trade-offs that shape the uptake of pollinator-friendly farming across five European regions. Through focus groups in Czechia, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland, we examine how stakeholders from multiple decision-making levels (including farmers, advisors, NGOs, and public agencies) perceive the social, agronomic, economic, and ecological impacts of adopting pollinator-friendly farming. Additionally, we look at stakeholder views regarding the effectiveness and practical application challenges of the pollinator friendly farming practices in their region.
We examine local perspectives and policy environments surrounding pollinator-friendly farming in Western and Mediterranean countries, a newer EU member state and a non-EU state. This geographical mix allows us to consider how environmental and socio-economic conditions shape how these practices are viewed, practiced and structurally supported (or hindered). We identify key themes regarding how stakeholders prioritise different co-benefits and trade-offs of pollinator-friendly farming practices, and how they relate these to relevant regional policies. Finally, we outline how these early insights inform our next steps, including the upcoming policy analysis and in-depth interviews that will address systemic barriers and opportunities for pollinator-friendly food systems.
How to cite: Prasilova, T., Zverinova, S., and Leventon, J.: Transformations to pollinator-friendly agriculture: Navigating multiple needs and wishes in diverse European farming systems , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-460, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-460, 2026.
Many research and policy initiatives seek to understand and foster adaptation to climate change at the community level. However, broader social and environmental systems often constrain community adaptation, such that, in some cases, systemic change is needed before communities can adapt. In the case of wildfire, a major climate change stressor in many parts of the world, hazardous conditions on the surrounding landscape constrain what communities can do to reduce risk. Some research suggests that large, destructive wildfires may create windows of opportunity for change. Responding to IBES TAC Chapter 3, we investigate how transformative adaptation occurs in the context of wildfire. Transformation adaptation refers to adaptation at large scales entailing behaviors that are new to a particular region or resource system and that transform places and shift locations (Kates et al. 2012). It is considered an appropriate response to novel shocks in the context of increasing loss, complexity, and uncertainty and rapid and high-magnitude change, signaling an impending regime shift (Colloff et al 2020). Through a cross-case comparison of the western US and south-central Chile, we investigate early signs of transformational adaptation and how it could reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire to communities. We investigate how community efforts to reduce risk are embedded within—and constrained by—social-ecological systems that create and exacerbate wildfire risk. We focus on situations where institutional forest management practices—enabled and encouraged by national economic policies—have created flammable forest conditions that pose an existential threat to communities and the ecosystem services on which they depend, and where communities—especially rural poor and indigenous peoples—are nevertheless expected to adapt. We identify cross-scale interactions and path dependencies that bring forest management, land use, wildfire risk, and community vulnerability into positive feedback loops. We propose leverage points for potential policy interventions to break these cycles following large wildfires. This research contributes to theories of transformation by integrating frameworks for understanding social-ecological systems, social vulnerability to natural hazards, and community adaptation.
How to cite: Fischer, A. P., Gonzalez, M., and Saavedra, G.: When Community Wildfire Adaptation Requires Transformation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-939, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-939, 2026.
There is an urgent and necessary need for transformative change towards sustainable and just futures. The recently approved IPBES Transformative Change Assessment (TCA) defines transformation as a shift across views, practices and structures, via multiple pathways and strategies. The TCA constitutes an analytical framework characterising transformations at different scales and contexts. Moreover, it provides an overview of the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, Principles of transformative change and the required Approaches to trigger, steer and reinforce transformations. As an analytical framework, the TCA has the potential to provide a better understanding of how place-based, complex change processes including plural visions of positive futures can derive different sustainability outcomes in different social-ecological contexts. This work applies the TCA framework to elicit most transformative pathways in the Kilimanjaro social-ecological system. We thereby aim to contribute to two main gaps in transformations research: 1) analyzing complex processes that unfold across views, structures and practices, at different scales and in various sectors, with place-based lenses; and 2) addressing plural – sometimes conflicting visions of what constitutes good futures across a diversity of actors. To address these gaps, we propose a place-based analysis of transformative change anchored in the TCA framework. We synthesize a long process of interdisciplinary social-ecological research including participatory workshops, surveys and interviews with diverse local actors at Mt Kilimanjaro to map how this social-ecological system may undergo transformative change. First, we aim to synthesize knowledge on how the Principles of transformative change, the Underlying causes of biodiversity and the main Challenges and barriers of transformation play out locally at Mt Kilimanjaro. We then aim to identify Visions and Views of various local actors such as villagers, conservationists, or local initiatives. We analyze existing and potential Approaches and Actions across the Views-Practices-Structures framework by exploring recommendations and desired management actions. With a focus on the Kilimanjaro social-ecological system, we capture systems dynamics, governance arrangements across scales and the place-specific aspects of transformative change. Hence, this work aims to provide an empirical place-based application that deepens the understanding of transformative change and identifies the most transformative pathways toward desirable futures for Mount Kilimanjaro.
How to cite: Dabard, C., Calderon-Contreras, R., and Martín-López, B.: Transformative pathways at Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania: an analytical application of the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-715, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-715, 2026.
Amid many communication strategies in 2025, creative advertising approaches are clearly powerful tools. Yet out-of-home (OOH) or outdoor media (OM) often receives little attention in advertising research, particularly when used in the context of climate change, sustainability and environmental issues. This research helps to bridge the gap with experimentation and analysis OOH or OM in the context of environmental messages by exploring how size, type (static versus mobile), placement, and content on advertisement engagement may shape engagement with climate change messages. We use data collected in a real-world field experiment (measured through QR codes) in 2022-2023, garnered through two waves of data collection using QR codes and clickthrough rates on mobile smartphones. We found that larger advertisements outperformed (in terms of engagement) smaller ones with the same message, that exterior bus advertisements garnered more engagement than interior advertisements, and static billboards were more engaging in terms of QR code scans than the transit or bus advertisements with the same messages. Furthermore, we found that general climate change advertisements and messaging gained more engagement than more specific sustainable fashion advertising messages that linked to climate change. Overall, we found that creative advertising through OOH/OM can be immensely powerful and effective in raising awareness and garnering engagement or even persuading people to take action within a wider context of advertising/PR work and climate science-policy processes and institutions facing influential carbon-based industry and climate change countermovement pressures. This experimental research has been designed and executed in order to help provide insights for ongoing campaigns for enhanced climate, environment and sustainability awareness and action. In the context of ongoing research to understand the utility of advertising – by carbon-based industry, by groups seeking to inspire greater pro-environmental behavior – our experimental work provides insights and implications for academics and practitioners who seek to shape and influence pro-climate awareness and behavioral action. Together, these dynamics shape ongoing challenges of communication, (mis/dis)information-sharing, education and literacy in contemporary society.
How to cite: Boykoff, M., Osnes-Stoedefalke, B., and Gangadharbatla, H.: How Advertising Matters: Media Strategies & Tranformative Change for Sustainable Development, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-243, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-243, 2026.
Threshold is a four-minute experimental song and music video written by songwriter Senna-Marie at FicSci 03 in 2024 (Convened by Mehita Iqani and Dr Wamuwi Mbao) and inspired by the research of South African Antarctic sea-ice scientist Dr Tokolo Rampai. The project explores both personally vulnerable and ecologically critical questions, asking after what threshold is the writer inspired, the water made solid, the climax reached, and the boundary breached.
Senna-Marie’s song was sparked by Dr. Rampai’s research in the Marginal Zone where sea-ice forms a floating ecosystem homing phytoplankton in its brine channels and mirroring the sun’s heat back into space. For Senna-Marie, Antarctic expeditions double as metaphor for the creative process: a voyage into the unknown.
The music video was directed by theatre-maker Nicola Pilkington and traces boundary lines: archival footage of expeditions intercut with the vulnerability of physical gestures, echoing the precision of scientific experiment and the intimacy of Senna-Marie’s singing. In one sequence, an Icebreaker angles through fields of ice juxtaposed by a close-up needle piercing into skin; drawing parallels between the failure mechanics of the ship’s maneuvers through sea-ice and the penetration of the bodily boundary. Screened over the lyric:
Can we doctor this?
Can we Doctor?
Another lyric, “Is this what it takes to throw up a storm and spit the salt,” touches on brine channels, sea-sickness and the Western Cape storms shaped by changes in Antarctic sea-ice. Completing the verse, “Is this what it takes to agitate against and to revolt” extends this into the socio-political tensions that shape treaties and public imagination.
Produced by Prof. Mehita Iqani (NRF South African Research Chair in Science Communication) Threshold forms part of a broader effort to stimulate public imagination around South Africa’s role in Antarctica. Having recently presented the work at MARiS, SCAR and the SANAP Symposium, sharing Threshold at the World Biodiversity Forum is part of recognising different ways of knowing: approaching climate research through the power of song in alignment with the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment’s call for creativity, imagination and knowledge co-creation.
How to cite: Bosman, S.-M.: Threshold - An experimental music video inspired by the sea-ice research of Dr Tokoholo Rampai., World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-245, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-245, 2026.
IPBES’s recent Transformative Change Assessment (TCA) identifies transformative change as the best way to address today’s overlapping global crises. However, as also identified in the TCA, unequal power relations continue to prevent the kinds of bold, paradigm-shifting solutions that are needed. These power relations must be made visible before they can be addressed, yet the most influential and harmful forms of power are often hidden by apolitical and technocratic styles of governance. Critical social sciences (i.e. those that tackle fundamental questions about power dynamics in societies), have long examined how capitalist and colonial systems shape environmental management and embed power in everyday decision-making. But even with this rich body of work, differences in ways of knowing and communicating can make it difficult to clearly convey how power operates. As a result, important insights about power are often “lost in translation.”
This communication gap limits efforts to tackle the power relations that drive both knowledge-related (epistemic) and material injustices, and it also weakens attempts to advance transformative change. In contrast, natural scientists have a wide range of “science literacy tools” that help them explain complex ideas. Yet there appear to be no equivalent tools designed to support communication across different disciplines and knowledge systems about power and its effects.
In this talk, I present a project that aims to fill this gap by creating “critical social science literacy tools” that help make hidden power dynamics easier to understand and discuss. The project builds on an ex-post analysis of two Swiss-based environmental programs. Using data from questionnaires and interviews, we identified key areas where there seemed to be confusion or lack of understanding about how power works. We then co-designed a series of open access tools based on these findings and tested them in workshops with practitioners, researchers, and educators. The goal is to support critical social scientists in teaching about power, and to help transformative change initiatives embed these concepts into their strategies and solutions. Ultimately, the project seeks to strengthen ongoing efforts to address power relations towards more just and transformative futures.
How to cite: Deutsch, S.: Translating transformations: Illuminating the power dynamics that hinder transformation using empirically-based theoretically-informed tools, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-369, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-369, 2026.
The accelerating biodiversity crisis demands urgent, system-wide transformation. Entrepreneurship, recognized as a driver of social, environmental and economic change, appears relevant to this challenge. However, entrepreneurship literature has largely neglected biodiversity conservation. Top entrepreneurship journals have published only six articles directly addressing biodiversity conservation in the past decade. This neglect is surprising given entrepreneurship research’s interest in impact, public good provision and addressing grand societal challenges. The absence of conservation-focused research limits the relevance of entrepreneurship insights for conservation practice and overlooks opportunities for theoretical development and cross-disciplinary action-research.
This manuscript (currently under review) bridges conservation and entrepreneurship by applying a leading, evidence-based framework from conservation science to assess entrepreneurship literature. We use the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Transformative Change Assessment (O’Brien et. al., 2025) to examine how flagship articles from entrepreneurship address, or overlook, the systemic challenges to transformation. The IPBES framework identified five such challenges: relations of domination, inequality, inadequate policies and institutions, unsustainable consumption and production, and limited access to technology and innovation. Specifically, we scrutinize how Markman et al. (2019)’s impact entrepreneurship and Vedula et al. (2022)’s entrepreneurship for the public good – respond to these five challenges.
Our synthesis reveals disciplinary strengths and critical gaps in the entrepreneurship literature. Entrepreneurship research provides valuable insights on institutional change and technology diffusion. However, it largely overlooks the domination of people and nature, economic and political inequalities, and unsustainable consumption and production patterns. We illustrate how these critical gaps constrain realization of transformative pathways by deconstructing two entrepreneurship studies of conservation initiatives. Drawing on conservation social sciences, particularly power theories and political ecology, we highlight theoretical insights and methodological tools that can address these gaps and strengthen entrepreneurship’s contribution to biodiversity conservation.
Our findings demonstrate that conservation science frameworks can guide entrepreneurship scholarship toward more contextually grounded and societally relevant contributions to biodiversity conservation, and transformative change more broadly.
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Markman, G. D., et al. (2019). Academy of Management Perspectives, 33(4), 371–382. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2019.0130
O’Brien, K., et al. (2025). IPBES Transformative Change Assessment: Summary for Policymakers. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.11382230
Vedula, S., et al. (2022). Academy of Management Annals, 16(1), 391–425. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2019.0143
How to cite: Matevich, S., Obschonka, M., and Sol, J.: Entrepreneurship for biodiversity conservation: Revealing pathways for impact based on the IPBES transformative change assessment, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-409, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-409, 2026.
This presentation offers a leadership perspective on addressing the global decline of biodiversity, considering the role of consumers, business, and governance therein.
International reports (e.g. IPBES TCA, 2024) recommend transformative change in global societal and economic systems to address biodiversity decline. While leadership is a known enabler of planned and transformational change, its specific role in the transformative change required to halt biodiversity loss remains underexplored. The problem appears two-sided. Conservation research focuses less on actors, or their leadership, while leadership research does not address biodiversity, instead contributing to biodiversity decline via a focus on companies’ profit maximization.
In this theoretical paper and presentation, we develop the concept of biodiversity-respectful leadership. In our conceptual development, we build on an interdisciplinary perspective connecting the natural and social sciences and an interdisciplinary research consortium’s multi-year discovery and insights, cf. BIODIFUL.
Traditionally leadership was considered the characteristic of charismatic individuals or managers in power positions. Recent advances posit leadership as an attribute that anyone can develop. Moreover, leadership can be shared by individuals, organizations and/or countries, while relationally connecting with nature. Notwithstanding, addressing wicked problems benefits from multi-level perspectives. Notwithstanding, the developed multi-level biodiversity-respectful leadership framework operates at individual, organizational, and institutional levels of analysis. In doing so, it examines how biodiversity loss can be addressed through the leadership of consumers, businesses, and public governance.
Our main contribution is in outlining the need for and the contents of a potential new leadership approach that addresses the biodiversity crisis, termed ‘biodiversity-respectful leadership’. In the paper, we develop such a multi-level leadership framework alongside propositions, while recognizing the many challenges in such leadership development.
Going forward, our findings are a call for action. All players, from the UN, to governments, firms, NGOs, local players, and individual consumer citizens, across the globe need to step up, awaken to, develop, and enact biodiversity-respectful leadership. This means taking responsibility for one’s actions and recognizing the extent of one’s impact on others and the planet. There is no escaping the responsibility for our planet’s wellbeing, be it one’s private or professional life. This is the personal and collective growth opportunity of our times.
How to cite: Teerikangas, S., Sääksjärvi, I., Räikkönen, J., Unkila, M., Salo, M., Salo, M., Kuhmonen, I., Uusitalo, O., Onkila, T., Puustinen, S., Uusitalo, V., Mäkelä, M., Pecoraro, M., Rouhiainen, H., Ahvenharju, S., Grenman, M., Järviö, N., Tuomasjukka, S., Aalto-Setälä, L., and Oksanen, H.: Leadership for biodiversity, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-447, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-447, 2026.
A range of collective efforts for biodiversity have emerged during the past century. Some initiatives show signs of global spreading, proving to be applicable, transferable, and adaptable to vastly different contexts and geographies. Examples of such globally relevant initiatives include nature conservation efforts or ecological restoration, and assigning greater rights for nature, all of which are becoming increasingly mainstream and globally prevalent. Other initiatives are more limited geographically and more specific but are recently gaining momentum. Examples include the application of policies and frameworks for biodiversity-positive economy and finance, nature-based health therapies, integration of biodiversity into education at all life stages, and into food systems. The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment explicitly calls for initiatives with transformative potential to be scaled out to other geographical contexts, in addition to be institutionalised in policy and rules and to be supported by shifts in paradigms and values. We pose the following questions: is scaling out a realistic pathway? What can we do to motivate transformative agents to persist in amplifying initiatives and resist against pushbacks? Leveraging on evidence of initiatives that have been scaled out globally in the past century, we propose a framework for enabling amplification of initiatives with transformative potential. We call for researchers and practitioners to jointly develop a living repository of such ”hopeful initiatives” with transformative potentials that evidently can spread globally. We argue that such initiatives represent a source of inspiration, which can provide lessons and strategies for future work. Our framework builds on theories of active hope from multiple disciplines, such as psychology, philosophy, and behavioral science, where agency and motivation are leveraged to face challenges that are systemic, persistent and pervasive. Along with the framework, we present its application for an ongoing research project ‘Hope Assessment’, which documents and analyses global evidence of collective human efforts to live in harmony with nature across eight major societal systems.
How to cite: Søgaard Jørgensen, P., Ningrum, D., Schill, C., Flores, C., and Österblom, H.: Scaling out transformative changes through a living repository of hopeful initiatives, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-621, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-621, 2026.
Transformative change in biodiversity governance requires more than new policies, technologies, and financial instruments. It demands rethinking whose knowledge counts, how authority is allocated, and how human–nature relationships are conceptualized, a concern central to IPBES TCA, for instance in its call for pluralistic and relational approaches to knowledge and metrics (5.6.4 and 5.5.4). Although biodiversity loss has global implications, its drivers and possible solutions are highly local, shaped by cultural relations with ecosystems and local community histories. As a result, the situated knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and other long-established local communities is indispensable to the effectiveness and justice of biodiversity action.
These communities are not only disproportionately affected by biodiversity decline; many have sustained ecological knowledge built over generations through ongoing interactions with their environments. Such knowledge can illuminate ecosystem dynamics and context-appropriate adaptation strategies that are epistemically robust while systematically undervalued (IPBES TCA 5.6.4; 5.3.1). Yet structural injustices continue to undermine the credibility ascribed to these knowledge systems in formal governance arenas. Cultural barriers and the enduring legacies of colonial policy not only unfairly exclude local voices, but also sideline forms of insight essential for place-specific conservation.
Drawing on philosophical work on structural and epistemic injustice, this paper diagnoses these dynamics and proposes tools for addressing them. First, we develop a conceptual vocabulary clarifying when Indigenous and local knowledges are marginalized and decontextualized in ways that diminish their epistemic standing. Second, we articulate key mechanisms to diagnose epistemic failures within conservation institutions, including testimonial and hermeneutical injustice.
Understanding these mechanisms in the context of biodiversity governance allows us to outline a practical roadmap for improving biodiversity policy, aligned with the TCA’s recommendations on knowledge co-production (IPBES TCA 5.7.4; 5.7.5). Our roadmap centers on (1) cultivating and embedding organizational epistemic virtue to recognize the limits of scientific authority, underscoring the validity of alternative epistemologies; (2) fostering reciprocal learning to enable iterative, long-term collaboration rather than one-off consultation; and (3) implementing shared decision-making procedures in which Indigenous and local knowledge holders act as epistemic authorities rather than sources of data.
How to cite: de Grefte, J. and de Bruin, B.: Transforming Biodiversity Governance: Respecting Indigenous and Local Knowledge, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-522, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-522, 2026.
The transition to sustainable agricultural production poses significant global challenges, particularly for farmers in the Global South. These farmers often face intertwined production and commercialization constraints, exacerbated by political and economic instability. Despite various efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, many farmers, including cocoa farmers, remain dependent on conventional agricultural practices and established trading systems. To better understand cocoa farmers' preferences and explore potential pathways for transition to sustainable agricultural practices, we conducted a two-stage choice experiment (CE) in two regions of Ecuador - the Coast and the Amazon. The CE was conducted before and after a deliberative workshop to assess farmers' preferences and to identify feasible options for change. The results indicate that cocoa farmers tend to prefer organic or natural production systems and place greater trust in recommendations coming from governmental entities. Farmers also show a clear preference for selling through intermediaries, which has a strong influence on commercialization channels. Moreover, farmers generally do not prefer to incorporate shade trees in their plots, partly due to the perceived disadvantages. These findings show that the socio-economic constraints faced by producers remain a central barrier to the adoption of more sustainable practices. Achieving a fair and meaningful transformation in the cocoa sector requires commitment at both individual and institutional levels across the entire supply chain. This includes not only adjustments on the production side in the Global South but also active engagement on the consumption side in the Global North. Such a shift calls for moving beyond the “warm-glow giving” that consumers experience when purchasing chocolate framed as ‘fair-traded’ or ‘environmentally friendly’. Instead, it demands tangible and sustained support directed to cocoa farmers, for whom sustainability is not a matter of preference but a condition for economic viability. Finally, transforming the sector requires stable and equitable conditions throughout the supply chain, supported by government actions that align with sustainable agricultural practices. These efforts should integrate both environmental, economic and social dimensions to ensure genuine and lasting change.
How to cite: Satama-Bermeo, M. M., García-Espigares, L., Lamotte, L., Ramírez, K., Santos, A., Zambrano, G., and Olschewski, R.: Eliciting Cocoa Farmers’ Preferences toward sustainable agriculture: A Two-Step Choice Experiment Approach, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-175, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-175, 2026.
Global biodiversity loss and accelerating socio-environmental change are reshaping human–nature interactions worldwide, with profound implications for the persistence of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK). As recognized in the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment, addressing these challenges requires not only ecological action but also an understanding of how knowledge systems themselves are transformed. Yet the processes through which LEK erodes or persists remain highly complex and uneven, making systematic global analysis both necessary and timely. Drawing on over 400 case studies from diverse regions, this research uses Sequential Rule Mining (SRM) to decode the underlying mechanisms that drive the loss or retention of LEK in each study. Our study provides quantitative and qualitative evidences on the complexity of the global drivers, and emphasizes that cultural and institutional environments fundamentally shape how communities experience and navigate change. While top-down governance, market integration, and scientific-centric validation frameworks often accelerate LEK erosion, our findings also demonstrate that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not passive recipients of external pressures. In many cases, they actively adapt, reorganize practices, and strengthen cultural identities in response to social and ecological disruptions. Such agency, expressed through community-led initiatives, cultural revitalization, and hybrid knowledge practices, plays a critical role in sustaining LEK and maintaining strong connections with place. These insights highlight that the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss extend beyond ecological degradation to include disruptions to knowledge systems, cultural continuity, and decision-making power. They also show that LEK retention cannot be fully understood through narrow or hierarchical knowledge frameworks. Instead, more inclusive and pluralistic approaches — recognizing local agency, relational values, and diverse modes of environmental expertise — are essential for designing governance arrangements that support just and sustainable socio-ecological futures. By illuminating the complex and dynamic pathways through which LEK is lost, transformed, or sustained, this study provides an evidence base for rethinking biodiversity governance. It underscores that empowering local communities and embedding diverse knowledge systems into policy processes are not only culturally important but also transformative strategies for strengthening resilience in an era of rapid global change.
How to cite: Fang, Q., Lee, T. M., Zhao, J., and Liang, Z.: Decoding the complex processes of local ecological knowledge loss or retention worldwide, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-608, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-608, 2026.
How scientists and science communicators position themselves in processes of societal transformation has become a crucial question for sustainability-oriented research. Expectations about the functions of science—ranging from providing neutral evidence to actively engaging in societal change—are diverse and sometimes conflicting. Against this backdrop, the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) launched an initiative to promote reflexivity and institutional learning on roles of scientists and science communicators in society. The project aims to strengthen awareness, dialogue, and competence regarding different roles scientists can assume at the science–society interface.
The initiative builds conceptually on the SCNAT publication “Roles of Scientists in Sustainability Transformations: A Guide for Reflection and Workshop Facilitation” (Studer et al., 2025). The guide proposes a framework that distinguishes among multiple, complementary roles of scientists—such as the pure scientist, honest broker, issue advocate, and process facilitator—and encourages reflection on values, expectations, and responsibilities associated with each. It provides a structured methodology for guided reflection and collective discussion within research institutions, scientific associations, and among individual experts, for example in transdisciplinary projects.
Building on this conceptual foundation, the SCNAT develops dialogue spaces and provides an overview of resources that support scientists and knowledge intermediaries in clarifying their societal positioning. It aims to motivate research institutions to integrate role reflection into education and professional development, to foster public debate on benefits and risks of scientific engagement in societal transformation processes, and to strengthen the role awareness of actors within the SCNAT network itself. By enabling differentiated understanding and communication of scientists’ roles, the initiative contributes to a more reflexive, transparent, and trustworthy interface between science, policy, and society.
Through its conceptual and institutional approach, the SCNAT initiative seeks to advance the collective capacity of the scientific community to engage effectively and responsibly in sustainability transformations—bridging disciplinary, professional, and societal perspectives.
Further information can be found here: https://naturalsciences.ch/roles_of_scientists/transformations
How to cite: Keller, R. and Wülser, G.: Fostering Reflexivity on Roles of Scientists in Societal Transformations: A Conceptual and Institutional Approach by the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT), World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-274, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-274, 2026.
Transformative change with its imperative to address the underlying causes of socio-ecological challenges is – hard. We have much to learn. We propose that walking transformative pathways requires reflexive footsteps and that researchers can play a role in building the capacity, the ‘reflexive muscles,’ for such walking. In this paper we first expand on the need for reflexive capacity encompassing the ability for engaging in personal and collective learning in a continuous process of action, evaluation, deep reflection followed by re-adjustment of plans and actions. We then describe the method for developing a web-based engagement platform (a toolkit in Horizon terminology) designed to support such reflexive journeys. The platform was developed within the TRANSPATH.EU project that seeks to identify leverage points and interventions for synergistically addressing climate change and biodiversity. The platform’s development followed co-creation principles - inclusivity, accessibility, and transparency - and applied a design thinking methodology that integrates five stages: (i) understanding, (ii) definition, (iii) ideation, (iv) prototyping, and (v) validation. Stakeholder dialogues in case studies in Western and Eastern Europe identified both key enablers and constraints of transformative change. In parallel, IPBES’ Transformative Change Assessment informed the prioritizing of leverage points. A user-centered design approach developed two user archetypes. Co-creation and validation meetings held throughout the design process within the diverse research team were extended to external end-users to continue refining the design based on active reflexivity. The resulting engagement platform adopts a context-sensitive approach, inviting users to reflect on the enablers and constraints of transformative change present in their own context. Through guided reflection questions, users chose which enabler or constraint to focus on. Inspirational tools from other transformation experiences are offered with possible actionable steps for adapting these to their own research or action context.
Finally we reflect on how such an engagement platform, developed within the constraints of a time-bound project, could be set up to serve as a living-actionable knowledge hub supporting those walking the steep road of transformative change, and how the research community – and its funders – would need to re-think its practices to enable this.
How to cite: Ramos Gaviria, N. and Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S.: Walking transformative pathways with reflexive footsteps – how can research(ers) help? , World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-703, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-703, 2026.
It is now widely accepted that research in the social sciences and humanities is fundamental to understanding the cultural, political and ethical aspects of environmental issues, and thus has a critical role to play in responding to the loss of biodiversity. In particular, scholarship in the critical and interpretive social sciences and humanities – from political ecology to philosophy of science – has an invaluable, yet still underutilized, role in the pursuit of transformative change for both human and ecological wellbeing due to its ability to question and rethink established paradigms and power structures. Yet, efforts to meaningfully integrate theory and philosophy from these fields into biodiversity conservation research can be a challenge. In this paper, we present two experiments intended to translate social theory and philosophy into conservation science, drawing on insights from the history, philosophy and sociology of science, political theory, environmental justice, and theatre practice. The first intervention is a novel interdisciplinary communication effort to bridge research philosophies in conservation science involving co-developing ‘ten facts’ from the social sciences for environmental research. In this, we describe and reflect on these ‘ten facts’ through the case of an ongoing research project with the Oxford Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery on ‘climate-smart’ cocoa production in Ghana, demonstrating how the application of critical theory can shape the goals, focus, and conduct of conservation research for more effective and ethical socio-environmental outcomes. The second intervention is the translation of these ten facts into ten theatre-based games that can be used to explore insights from theory and philosophy without relying on complex terminology and written explanations, but rather creative and embodied engagement. These games were co-developed by social scientists and theatre practitioners, and can be used as part of transdisciplinary training in classrooms, workshops, research groups, and conservation organisations to foster communication across disciplines. Through these experiments, our hope is to support capacity building amongst conservation researchers of all kinds to engage with theory and philosophy as part of everyday research practice, and thereby help the biodiversity conservation community to ‘lead transformation together’ for the benefit of both people and planet.
How to cite: Montana, J. and Welden, A.: Translating theory and philosophy into conservation science: An applied approach to foster interdisciplinarity through novel communication and creative engagement, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-566, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-566, 2026.
In times of multiple, overlapping crises, both public and academic interest in the commons and commoning has grown significantly. Commoning is portrayed as a compelling alternative to capitalism—an experiment in collective practice as well as a vision of a broader commonsverse, a potential pathway toward structural and economic transformation (Helfrich and Bollier 2019). Little research, however, has gone into understanding the spaces in between better, as in delving into what happens – and what needs to happen - within the collective experience of provisioning emotionally, experientially, practically for them to be perceived as and offering potential to transpire at a meta-level.
In this article, we explore the spaces in between—those where working together, being together, and co-becoming give rise to change, and where this change manifests across different dimensions (Gustavo Garcia et al.: 2021). Drawing on examples from urban commons initiatives in two German cities, we examine how people organize commoning for change, what motivates their engagement, and which challenges they encounter along the way. Through an interpretation framework that captures three interrelated dimensions; individuals’ personal motivation to participate in commoning initiatives; their aspirations for broader societal transformation, and their capacity and willingness to co-create alternative realities, this article seeks to understand how commoners reflect on the tensions and challenges that emerge in their practice. By intersecting the notions of structuring principles and being and becoming together (working togetherness) we also ask how both are necessary for commoning to unfold as a form of transformative change. We understand this transformation as the ongoing ability to strive toward a utopian vision of commoning—fully aware that this vision will inevitably evolve through the uncertainties and ambiguities of everyday life. In essence, we read between the lines to trace how structuing patterns of commoning foster working togetherness (Blau, forthcoming), and how these relational patterns, in turn, reorient our protagonists away from the capitalist logic of separation and individual utility maximization—toward shared, collective becoming.
How to cite: Blau, J. P. and Kissling, E.: Niche phenomena or drivers of change: Reflections on the emergence of urban commoning provisioning ecosystems, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-624, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-624, 2026.
