Materials and Methods

Our approach consisted of two phases. 1) We designed and applied a participatory futures process in Nationaal Park Hollandse Duinen to create a space for stakeholders to explore positive futures for nature based on diverse desirable relationships with nature. Our process strategically integrates the Nature Futures Framework (Pereira et al. 2020), to open-up people’s thinking about desired people-nature relations, with the Three Horizons Framework (Sharpe et al. 2016) to focus people’s thinking about desired people-nature relations into three distinct time horizons, and how these time horizons might influence each other. 2) We developed and applied an analytical framework that includes a thematic analysis as well as an SDGs target analysis of workshop outputs to better understand the emerging visions and their potential contribution to sustainable development. In the following subsections we further introduce the case study area, present the main frameworks used, provide a step-by-step description of the workshop process and present the analytical framework.

Background

National Park Hollandse Duinen

National Park Hollandse Duinen was created in 2016, when drinking water company Dunea brought together 45 parties in the area to participate in the ‘Most Beautiful Nature Area of the Netherlands’ election (NPHD 2017). This participation - and the election as one of the three most beautiful nature areas by the Dutch public - initiated the development process of one of the first Dutch ‘new style’ national parks: large areas where high biodiversity, cultural-heritage and socio-economic values co-exist and even reinforce each other (Nationaal Parken Bureau 2018; NPHD 2020a). The ecosystems of NPHD are heavily influenced by humans, if not entirely shaped by them (Neefjes 2018), and yet no less than 6974 species were counted by a citizen science project in the natural areas of the park (https://hollandseduinen.waarneming.nl/5000.php). An example of how nature and people work together is the protection and management of a dune area by Dunea for provisioning of ecosystem services, not least the natural filtration and storage of fresh water to provide 1.3 million residents of the National Park and adjacent areas with tap water. The human-inclusive approach to conservation developed in NPHD builds on a long tradition of integrated landscape approaches in Europe, such as the superseded ‘National Landscapes’ (Janssen 2009a, b; Janssen and Knippenberg 2012), and shares common grounds with UNESCO Biosphere Reserves (Winkler 2019), IUCN category V ‘protected landscape or seascape’ (Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2013), and urban national parks (Roe et al. 2018), such as the London National Park City and Stockholm Royal National City Park. Convened by the National Park, local actors can work together to enhance biodiversity values by strengthening ecological connectivity in the landscape; resolving scale mismatches; enhancing landscape multifunctionality; alleviating existing trade-offs between nature and human well-being; and bolstering the co-benefits of integrated strategies. This may be achieved by aligning fragmented management and planning practices; mobilizing investments in green infrastructure and nature-based adaptation; promoting polycentric governance; forging unconventional alliances across sectors; and facilitating experimentation to challenge conventional practices, e.g. through ‘living labs’. Twelve concrete projects are presented in the implementation program 2021-2025 (NPHD 2020b)

The Nature Futures Framework

The Nature Futures Framework is a heuristic tool designed to provide a starting point for creating diverse nature-centered scenarios. The framework engages people’s values to create narratives that can be translated into collective action (Pereira et al. 2020). It distinguishes three broad value perspectives (Figure 1):
The Nature Futures Framework draws on other classifications of people-nature relationships. For example, (Mace 2014) describes four main phases in the modern framing of nature conservation: Nature for itself, Nature despite people, Nature for people, People and nature; (Chan et al. 2016) present three key value types underlying nature conservation as instrumental, intrinsic and relational, which are also central to IPBES’ guide on multiple values (IPBES 2015). The Nature Futures Framework casts these ideas into three value perspectives that are easy to communicate to a wide audience and positions them in the vertices of a triangular space (Fig 1A). In that way the perspectives draw attention for being different, without judgement of rightness or wrongness, but emphasizing that when taken to the extreme, tradeoffs among these perspectives are inevitable. At the same time, the centrally featured space in between the vertices opens up for the discovery of diversity, relativity and plurality. Indeed, most people will identify with a mix of the three perspectives.
The development of the Nature Futures Framework is driven by IPBES’ task force on Scenarios and Models through an iterative process involving strong stakeholder engagement (Pereira et al. 2020). The underlying mandate is to catalyze the development and application of new nature-centered scenarios and models by the broader research community to, ultimately, better inform upcoming assessment studies (IPBES 2019b). The Nature Futures Framework is envisaged to be used flexibly and in different ways, from structuring participatory visioning processes, to quantitative modelling assessments, and ex-post assessments of existing scenarios (IPBES 2021). In this paper we focus on unpacking the Nature Futures Framework as a heuristic device to be used in participatory visioning processes. A key promise of the Nature Futures Framework is to help people identify and articulate their own desired relationship with nature, understand the diversity and plurality of peoples perspectives on nature, and identify and negotiate shared values as fertile grounds for collective actions towards positive futures in which multiple nature values are enhanced (Pereira et al. 2020). In many cases it will be difficult for people to agree on tough decisions about how they engage with nature in the present. It may be easier to jointly deliberate and agree on desired relationships with nature in the future, as a basis for making decisions in the present. This is where the Nature Futures Framework is expected to be useful.