The living infinite: Envisioning futures for transformed human-nature relationships on the high seas

In the context of the UN Decade for the Oceans, humanity is at a critical crossroad for the future governance of the high seas. However, the perception of an intangible global ocean creates a barrier to engange with it. In consequence, the ocean governance mechanisism mismatch the actual needs of the oceans and the people living with it.

In two online and two in-person workshops, the NFF was used in futures thinking processes to enhance the willingness to transform the governance of the high seas while creating posite Ocean Futures. Therefore, the workshops followed an arts-based, co-production and participatory approach, combined with the following methods: Three Horizons, STEEP, Seeds of Good Anthropocenes, iceberg model, science fiction prototyping and storytelling.

This process lead to three positive Nature Futures for the high seas according to each value perspective within the NFF triangle.

1. Nature for Nature – the Nemo Chronicles: sustainable use of living as well as non-living resources embedded in a collectivist approach drawing on feminist governance and international relations theory with a high seas commercial taxt that limits the profits from the high seas.
2. Nature as Culture – polycultural fractals of the ocean: the ocean is held as a global common while there is a deep empathy-driven human-nature relationship, rooted in intrinsic euqality, fairness and spirituality.
3. Nature for Society – sentient stewards of the sea: negotioations for a new law of the seas are underway. The aim is to grant personhood and equal rights to nature which are represented by a global ocean stewardship council.

In general, diversifying value perspectives opens a process to anticipate, interate, link and design target-seeking scenarios. By intertwining qualitative and quantitative methods, the NFF contributes to modelling on three levels. By bridging plausible scenarios, one can comapere modelled pathways. Through iterating pre-defined political and societal feasibility of ocean pathways can be modelled. Merging contributes to transform real-world poltitical and societal constraints into structurally modified models.

Creative endeavours of co-production encourage imagination to address challenges since stories and art can be powerful ways to overcome barriers. Thus, participatory processes are important tools in the science-policy interface.

This workshop series is an example and hopfully the start for integrating arts-based visioning into the development of an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity (BBNJ).