Figure 6 Conceptual figure depicting how a loosely
defined collective vision can act as a boundary objective for a boundary
process guiding individual and collective actions based on a set of
shared principles.
Indeed, the approach aligned well with the broader development process
of NPHD. As such, the process did not initiate a structural break in the
development trajectory of NPHD. Rather it supported the existing
process, for which it was recognized as a useful tool by the director of
NPHD, who was involved in co-design of this study and is an author on
this paper. Starting the process with surfacing and reflecting on
people’s diverse relationships with nature, facilitated by the NFF, was
something that resonated. It inspired a more reflexive approach in
subsequent engagement processes (Schultz et al. 2018; Horcea-Milcu et
al. 2019); How are people entering the process; what values do they hold
and bring in? So far that was a bit underexposed in the broader
development process of NPHD.
Another aspect of the process that resonated was the exploration of the
three time horizons. That thinking fitted-in well with a broader but
somewhat ad-hoc iterative process of dreaming big and reflecting on the
present by National Park actors, and helped to emphasize long-term
thinking during development of NPHD’s landscape strategy (Veenstra
2020). More generally, what worked well was the clear structure and
stepwise design of the process, through the six phases, that still
allowed for flexibility in how it was applied. The success of visioning
processes often depends on who participates. Indeed, not everyone feels
comfortable with dreaming about a radically different future. Useful
therefore is how the Three Horizons Framework promotes inclusivity as it
provides flexibility to switch between time horizons depending on the
emerging group dynamics. This was reflected by the dynamics of the three
groups in this workshop: each completed the six phases of the process,
but focused on different parts (Table 1). Furthermore, what was
appreciated was that the workshop process based on the NFF and the Three
Horizons is rather different from traditional workshops. As such, it
offered the actors involved in the co-design of the process a reflection
on alternative tools and methods for informing change processes, and
enlarged their toolbox of available workshop methods.
Contributing to the Agenda
2030
The SDG Target analysis shows how development of NPHD towards the
envisioned futures would result in progress for almost all of the SDGs.
In particular there appears to be a large potential for NPHD to
contribute to Goals 8, 11, and 15. Our analysis also uncovered several
SDG targets that are deemed relevant for NPHD but which were not brought
up by the participants during the workshop. These targets may indicate
unrecognized potential for NPHD to contribute to sustainable
development. For example, one topic that was clearly underexposed is equity (targets 5.5, 16.b, 10.3, 10.7). There is also relatively
little attention for the contribution of NPHD to public health (targets 3.3, 3.D), though it must be noted that the workshop process
took place a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Recent
increased attention to nature-health relationships is likely to have
shifted this focus (Kleinschroth and Kowarik 2020).
It is important to point out the limitations of the SDG analysis as
applied in this study. The sticky notes are not very suitable as
sampling units as they contain limited and diverse information. In
response, the researchers took an inclusive approach to coding the
sticky notes. It is likely that more specific ideas for the future of
NPHD have scored fewer targets than broad or ambiguously formulated
ideas indirectly touching on various targets. It is therefore important
to focus on the more generic patterns that emerge from this analysis,
such as the three goals that clearly stand out and the most frequently
appearing targets. Indeed, the SDG Target analysis is not intended to
provide hard evidence, rather as a starting point for critical
reflections on which aspects of sustainability are to be considered and
prioritized by NPHD. Even so, an additional step of Jiménez-Aceituno et
al. (2020) that we have not done here but which can still provide
interesting insights is an analysis of interactions between the SDGs
through the elements of the visions. This may help understand how
progress towards a specific target may be leveraged to attain various
aspects of a desirable future for NPHD.
Heinrup and Schultz (2017) described UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Sweden
as arenas for implementing the Agenda 2030, distilling five key
functions: they serve as platforms for collaboration; connect actors
vertically and horizontally, maintain healthy ecosystems, promote
learning and awareness raising, and integrate the SDGs. As a close
relative of Biosphere Reserves, NPHD too can be an arena for
implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Yet, to date, the SDGs have not
played a significant role in the development process of NPHD, nor more
generally in Dutch nature conservation and landscape governance. However
there are actors in the region who are actively engaging with SDGs as
part of their operations. As such, NPHD may strategically employ the
SDGs as a tool to link with specific actors. Similarly, adopting the
SDGs may help to better portray the international context of the
National Park. The insights gained through the SDG target analysis about
which Goals and Targets are relevant are expected to be useful here.
Besides understanding how NPHD may contribute to achieving the SDGs, the
visions for NPHD, and NFF-inspired development processes more generally,
may also provide valuable insights into what aspects of sustainable
development are currently missing from the SDGs. We did not do an NFF
analysis of the SDGs but close inspection of the SDG targets informed us
that there is much focus on Nature for People and a bit on Nature for Nature but very little on Nature as Culture value perspectives. We note for example that landscapes are not
represented in the SDGs, let alone biocultural landscapes (Chakroun and
Droz 2020; Hanspach et al. 2020). Zheng et al. (2021) recently
highlighted a general underappreciation of culture in the Agenda 2030.
We point to a critical interrogation of the SDGs using the NFF as
important future research.
How the process can be further developed
The 1-day workshop process, whilst a useful activity for the
stakeholders and as a case study to explore how the NFF could be
operationalized in a local level case study, also had its limitations.
For a fully immersive futuring process, it is advisable to bring people
together for a couple of days at a time so that they can really engage
fully with the process, unpack potential inconsistencies and work
through potential conflicts. This workshop process was developed from a
longer Manoa mash-up method approach that was initially established as a
3-4 day workshop (Pereira et al. 2017; Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2020). A
potential next step could therefore be to consolidate the visions that
emerged during the workshop in NPHD into more integrative and coherent
narratives through a longer process whereby a full Manao mash-up method
is employed. Steps for such extended narrative development could build
from the newspaper headlines in this paper (Table 1) and use either the
VERGE framework to ask participants to describe certain aspects of the
future world, such as what is created/what is destroyed/what is consumed
(Lum 2015) or take a more science-fiction prototyping approach whereby a
narrative is developed around a core character in this future world
(Merrie et al. 2017). The latter has informed the development process
for illustrative narratives of future worlds using the NFF (PBL 2020).
Another aspect could be to get more creative with the visions so that
they are able to draw on people’s emotional attachment to the national
park (Pereira et al. 2019). Graphic facilitation helped participants to
visualize their discussions, but more engaged artistic experiences such
as through theatre or photography could elicit other connections to
nature value perspectives (Galafassi et al. 2018; Muhr 2020).
While our analyses focused on the visioning of the third horizon, an
important part of the participatory process was the exploration of
transformative change through all three horizons in steps 3-5. This is a
first step in developing pathway scenarios that connect the visions and
describe how to get to these more desirable futures (Hamann et al.
2020). The second horizon already offers building blocks for connecting
the future visions with the present and outline some specific
interventions, but these can be made more concrete and potential
conflicts and trade-offs unpacked (Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2020). An
example here is how agriculture inside the national park is both a
challenge and an opportunity for achieving desirable nature futures of
NPHD. Creating multiple pathways emphasizes that there is no single
trajectory and makes explicit different perspectives and trade-offs. It
is also possible then to compare and contrast these local scenarios with
elements in existing global scenarios, such as the Shared Socioeconomic
Pathways, to delineate what alternatives to the dominant global
narratives there may be (Aguiar et al. 2020). Similarly, enabled by the
thematic analysis (Table 2), these local scenarios may be
cross-fertilized with other local NFF-inspired scenarios (e.g. Lembi et
al. 2020), and feed into the inductive scenario development process of
the IPBES task force on scenarios and models to better inform future
assessments (Pereira et al. 2020).
Responding to the remark of one of the participants that “now we need
maps and start drawing”, a step to extend and concretize the visioning
and pathway exploration approach would be to develop spatially explicit
scenarios and create maps to visualize the possible futures. Such a step
could be facilitated through participatory mapping approaches where
stakeholders jointly spatialize their visions (Palacios-Agundez et al.
2015; Reilly et al. 2018). This could serve as a cross-check to
determine whether the visions could be realized within the study region.
The scenario maps would form the basis for further assessment and
quantification of ecosystem services and implications for biodiversity.
Easy-to-use, readily available ecosystem services models such as InVEST
can be applied for such assessments (Ruckelshaus et al. 2015; Hamel et
al. 2021), specifically to analyze implications regarding the Nature for Society perspective of the NFF. From the Nature
for Nature and Nature as Culture perspectives the visions and
desires of people, as surfaced during our process, challenge
conventional modelling approaches, as these fail to represent the known
diversity of people-nature interactions (Kok et al. 2016; Rosa et al.
2017).
National parks and other forms of protected areas are increasingly
understood as complex adaptive systems, subject to nonlinearity,
uncertainty, emergence and self-organization (Berkes 2004, 2007; Cumming
and Allen 2017). From that perspective, the objectives of NPHD will
likely evolve over time, and the process of developing the park will
never be “finished”. Navigating the development trajectory of NPHD
towards desirable futures for nature and people can benefit from
adaptive co-management approach that includes frequent visioning and
pathways exploration as part of a continuous stakeholder engagement
process (Olsson et al. 2004; Kerkhoff et al. 2019). As such, the
outcomes generated by the workshop process in NPHD should not be seen as
final products and could become stepping stones in a series of
engagements. Yet, depending on the aims of the process, the scope may be
narrowed down further to hold more focused discussions. For example, a
follow-up workshop could focus on nature futures of the bulb agriculture
within NPHD, to identify more integrated solutions to a known policy
challenge. Whatever the context and the aims, it is important to clearly
communicate before the workshop to participant stakeholders what will be
done with the outcomes. And, in that same vein, to report back to the
participants after the workshop what is done with the results.