Paper short abstract:

The Nature Futures Framework was used in the M’mbelwa Ngoni Kingdom of Malawi to envision desirable people and nature futures. Five visions and three artworks were developed. Key findings were that it was difficult to imagine desirable futures without referring to pre-colonial times.

Paper long abstract:

The failure to meet global sustainability goals highlights the need to develop transformative strategies to restore the planet. Global scenarios largely ignore the role of the biosphere in supporting a good quality of life and do not allow participants to experiment with the transformative changes necessary to achieve sustainability goals. The aim of this work was to employ a decolonial approach to creating futures that acknowledge structural and historical injustices on the continent.

The African Futures Project, Mabilabo Social Support Forum and the Mzimba Heritage Association convened two future visioning workshops with local communities and traditional leaders of the M'mbelwa Ngoni Kingdom of Mzimba, Malawi. Interviews with key stakeholders were undertaken to understand the regional context. The visioning exercises were grounded in the Nature Futures Framework developed by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Taskforce on Scenarios and Models to develop multiscale scenarios based on desirable human- nature relationships.

Five visions and three artworks on desirable future possibilities for people and nature were developed. A key reflection on connecting Indigenous and Local Knowledge with futures thinking through a decolonial approach was that all groups found it difficult to imagine more desirable futures based on the present, but needed to return to a pre-colonial past to envision what a culturally appropriate future may entail. Case studies using the NFF and FW will be conducted in the Barotse Cultural Landscape, Zambia and “La bouche du Roy” landscape, Benin to elicit desirable future visions.