Why forests?

Because the forest’s voice, as a multispecies ecosystem, is missing from the very discussions where it belongs.

In the current forest discourse, public debate, and policymaking, we tend to view forests through human-centered lens. We see forests as economic assets, carbon sinks, recreational spaces, or raw-material sources. Even biodiversity and nature conservation related discussion often treats nature as capital that must keep producing benefits for us, humans. What is missing is the forest’s own perspective. What does the forest, as a multispecies ecosystem, need in order to flourish? To be able to understand the question, we have to challenge the idea of human exceptionalism and realism that our well-being and ecosystems are inextricably linked to the survival and flourishing of other forms of life. In practice, we should start seeing forests as webs of relationships, long-memory systems with their own needs, rhythms, and timescales. This is why Voice of Forest workshop wasn’t at all about what forests provide for us. It was about honoring their right to exist and thrive as living systems we coexist with.

Why experiential futures?

Traditional foresight processes often remain abstract, expert-driven, and disconnected from people’s everyday experiences. As a result, they may struggle to generate emotional engagement, a sense of agency, or meaningful participation in shaping future trajectories. In the Voice of Forest workshop, we explored alternative approaches by inviting participants to engage with forests through multiple sensory and creative modalities, including listening, touching, smelling, discussion, imagination, drawing, and hands-on artefact creation.

This approach builds on what futures scholars Stuart Candy and Jake Dunagan describe as the “experiential gulf”: the gap between abstract knowledge about possible futures and people’s lived experience of those futures. In addition their research suggests that such experiences can expand imagination, challenge existing assumptions, and strengthen people’s capacity to act in support of preferred futures. (Read more: The Experiential Turn (Candy & Dunagan, 2017).

Why multispecies?

We wanted to shift perspective and see possible futures through the eyes of forests, asking how their voices could be better represented in decision-making. Design and policy work tend to stay human-centered, overlooking the interdependency between species that’s key to any sustainability transition. Multispecies is more-than-human approach emphasises systemic thinking and empathy. Some governments acknowledge the concept of multispecies justice, which means an ethical and legal framework proposing that non-human entities (such as animals, forests, and river systems) have interdependent needs and should be explicitly considered in political and environmental decision-making. New Zealand’s Whanganui River and Te Urewera forest, Colombia’s Atrato River, and India’s Ganges and Yamuna rivers are among the most cited examples.

However, there are limits in this approach. Humans inevitably interpret what a forest might “need” and speak on its behalf, making projection difficult to avoid. Yet this does not diminish the value of the exercise. Attempting to imagine a forest’s perspective encourages humility, reveals assumptions that often go unquestioned, and fosters forms of empathy and systems thinking that can influence how people understand and act upon sustainability challenges. Rather than speaking for nature with certainty, multispecies thinking helps us become more attentive and responsible participants in the living systems upon which we depend.