Figure 2. A depiction of how three phases of the workshop
focused on the Three Horizons. a) Phase 3 focused on the Third Horizon.
b) Phase 4 focused on the First Horizon. c) Phase 5 focused on the
Second Horizon. On the x-axis is time, without units, and on the y-axis
is ‘dominant patterns’, without units.
Phase 4: First Horizon
The fourth phase focused on an assessment of the current system, that
is, the first horizon. What are things people cherish and want to
maintain into the future, what needs to grow, and what needs to be
phased out (Figure 3B). Questions asked to the groups were: What
in the current area of NPHD contributes to, impedes, and needs to
develop to create desirable futures for NPHD? Different colors of
sticky notes were used to differentiate desirable features from
undesirable features. New and promising policies and plans that have
come into effect but are too new to have had any effect are mapped onto
the middle of the first horizon, as a lead-up to the second horizon.
Additionally, we encouraged participants to think of more seeds in the
present, and agree on three seeds that are considered particularly
promising for growing the third horizon, which were captured by the
graphic facilitator.
Phase 5: Second Horizon
The fifth phase focused on the transitional space and thinking about
enabling actions, that is, the second horizon (Figure 2C). Questions
asked to the groups were: What needs to happen to transition from
the present towards the desired futures? Which innovations are going to
be game changers in the near future and play a role in the transitions?
Where will the main tensions and contestations arise? Can we identify
synergies between nature values, innovations and seeds? The emerging
discussion then naturally converged into a few key talking points. We
asked the groups to come up with a name of their group that represented
these defining issues, as well as three key words.
Phase 6: Group Presentations and Plenary
reflections
During the final phase the groups presented their main outcomes to each
other, using their sheets and the artwork of the graphic facilitator.
Discussions and reflections continued in plenary using a semi-free
format. The questions we used to guide the discussion were: What
did the participants learn? What are lessons for NPHD? What will the
participants take back to their organizations? What are follow-up
steps? The discussion was moderated by the director of the National
Park.
Analytical Framework
The analytical framework was applied to the co-produced group outputs
for the third horizon, which sketch a coarse vision of a desirable
future of the National Park. The framework consists of two parts, a
thematic analysis and an SDG Target analysis.
Thematic analysis
Developing a thematic structure to present the envisioned futures for
NPHD in the third horizon helps with ex-post sense-making of the content
produced within subgroups as well as comparison across subgroups. Such
structured comparison facilitates identification of commonalities as
well as differences and divergences, which may point to consensus and
disagreement across the stakeholders about the future of National Park
Hollandse Duinen. Additionally, it facilitates cross-case comparison
with other bottom-up scenario processes using a similar structure and
the uptake of the content into the inductive scenario development
process of new global nature scenarios for IPBES based on case studies
from across the world (Pereira et al. 2020).
After the workshop we entered transcripts of the sticky notes from the
annotated participatory diagrams into a spreadsheet database. Then, for
each of the groups, we organized the entries into thematic categories.
To do so, we first checked for clusters of sticky notes as formed by the
participants themselves during the workshop process. Notes from the
subgroup discussions served as a guide to interpretation of post-it
transcripts and emergent clusters. Additionally, we looked at thematic
categories that emerged from a pilot application of the Nature Futures
Framework in Brazil (Rana et al. 2020) and a narrative building workshop
by the IPBES Task Force on Scenarios and Models (PBL 2020) and adopted
relevant categories to complement or merge with the previously
identified categories. This was to start to develop some level of
consistency between various case studies that use the Nature Futures
framework. It is envisaged that with each iteration, a final group of
categories that are relevant across different contexts and cases will
emerge.
SDG Target analysis
The SDGs provide humanity with a target space for sustainable
development. Thus, arguably, the SDG targets represent the
internationally agreed third Horizon of the world. As such, they may be
compared with the third horizon for NPHD to assess how the envisioned
futures of NPHD may help achieve the international vision for
sustainable development as portrayed by SDGs, and vice versa.
Content analysis
The SDG Target analysis started with an inspection of each of the 169
SDG Targets. Two researchers assessed which of the targets are relevant
for National Park Hollandse Duinen, first without reference to the
workshop outputs. Filtering out all the SDG Targets that are clearly not
relevant, at least according to the understanding of the researchers,
presents a potential SDG space against which the results of the outputs
of the workshop process may be compared. Next, following
Jiménez-Aceituno et al. (2020), we used content analysis to identify the
SDGs and related targets addressed by the sticky notes that shaped the
third horizons generated by the workshop process. The sticky notes of
the third horizon provided the sampling units, the expressions on the
sticky notes provided the data collection units, and the SDG targets
were the units of analysis. For each of the sticky notes we checked
whether they met each one of the 169 SDG targets in an iterative process
of coding and re-examining. Additionally, for each of the sticky notes,
we selected one Goal that was most relevant (see Appendix C for an
example). We analyzed the data collection units in the original language
(Dutch) to prevent meaning going lost in translation. The notes from the
subgroup discussions served as a guide to the interpretation of the data
collection units. Yet, here we acknowledge that the information provided
by the sticky notes is diverse and, inherently to sticky notes, limited.
Some ideas and preferences for the future of NPHD clearly speak to one
or several SDG targets. In other cases, however, some interpretation by
the researchers was unavoidable, for example when expressions were
formulated ambiguously or so broad that they touched upon various SDG
targets, albeit not very directly. In those cases, the researchers
discussed their interpretations until consensus was reached. In general,
because the workshop outputs were supposed to provide more of a rich
picture than a clearly articulated vision, the researchers were
inclusive in their judgement. Also, akin to (Jiménez-Aceituno et al.
2020), the SDG targets were, in some cases, adapted to be relevant for
the analysis of this workshop process. For example, when the year 2020
was mentioned as part of the target description we used 2030 instead.
Descriptive analysis
We used descriptive statistics to explore which SDGs, and how many of
the SDG targets were addressed by the sticky notes that shaped the third
horizon for NPHD. These targets may be used to discuss the potential of
NPHD to contribute to the Agenda 2030 if the visions would give
direction to the development process. Subsequently, we identified which
of the SDG targets that, a-priori, were considered by the
researchers to correspond with the mission of NPHD did not appear in the
broad visions for NPHD produced during the workshop process. These
targets may be discussed as unrecognized potential of NPHD to contribute
to the Agenda 2030.