Whose voice is heard in futures discussions and decisions? To explore this question, we (Anni Leppänen, Marttiina Arelma, and I) organised the Voice of Forest workshop on Futures Day 2026.
This long read explains the thinking behind Voice of Forest, walks through our methodology of multispecies and experiential futures approaches, and shares the prototypes that emerged.
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-centred lenses. 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. What’s missing is the forest’s own perspective. What does the forest need in order to flourish. We should start seeing forests as webs of relationships, long-memory systems with their own needs, rhythms, and timescales. This is why our workshop wasn’t about what forests provide for us. It was about honouring their right to exist and thrive as living systems we coexist with.
Why experiential futures?
Traditional foresight work might stay abstract, technical, and expert-centric — distant from everyday people, with low emotional engagement and weak agency. Candy and Dunagan describe this as the “experiential gulf,” where physical space and objects offer a more immersive, interactive way to engage with futures. Artefacts can make systems tangible and even fictional experiences have real potential to shift behaviour.
Why multispecies?
We wanted to shift perspective: to see the world, and its futures, through the eyes of forests, and ask how their voices could be better represented in decision-making. Design and policy work tend to stay human-centred, overlooking the interdependency between species that’s key to any sustainability transition. Multispecies and more-than-human approaches offer systemic thinking and empathy — and they’re not just theoretical. Several governments around the world have already granted legal personhood to ecosystems such as rivers and mountains.
We built a two-hour futures-prototyping process, with exercises and materials designed to support individual, pair, and group work.
1. Exhibition as inspiration
After a short welcome, participants explored the Forest Home exhibition by photographers Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo, guided by three questions: What kind of forests are represented here? What is a forest made of? What is your own relationship with forests? More on the exhibition →
2. Opening circle
We brought forest elements — juniper and pine branches, dried leaves, a jar of soil, pine cones, stones, heather cuttings, a polypore, dried mushroom, wood slices, and a Nordic Forest Rituals card deck — and invited each participant to choose one that called to them. In the circle, everyone introduced themselves and their object, along with a wordless sound and movement expressing “the forest in you.” We then paired up to discuss how our relationships with forests have changed over time.
3. Forest Scenarios by Kone Foundation
In 2025, Kone Foundation and DialogiAkatemia ran Suuri Metsädialogi, a series of dialogue circles that produced four forest futures scenarios. We selected tree scenarios as the foundation for our own scenario exercise. Read more in Finnish →
- Forest Standoffs 2050 — Deepening disputes over forest use stall national solutions to restore forest ecology, while ecological imbalance and timber shortages grow.
- Timber Valleys 2050 — Logging is restricted or stopped in many areas, replaced by highly refined, innovative forest products that help maintain ecological balance.
- Conservation Realm 2050 — 60% of forests are protected; the shrunken forest industry serves mainly the domestic market, and forests are healthier and more climate-resilient.
Participants chose a scenario to read before the next exercise.
4. Imagination exercise: mental time travel
Participants closed their eyes as our facilitator read a guided meditation — accompanied by futures and forest sounds — helping them imagine the future described in their chosen scenario. Anni adapted this technique from colleagues Savannah Vize and Andrea Gilly, building on methods pioneered by Rob Hopkins, Phoebe Tickell, and Jane McGonigal. Our script also shares common ground with Symboiesis’s Collective Imagination Practices Toolkit.
5. Scenario development
Groups formed around each scenario and used a custom canvas to develop it further, starting by sharing what they’d imagined during the meditation. The canvas was designed to surface the boundaries between daily human life, forests, and society’s political and policy processes — centred on one question: how is the voice of the forest represented in this future?
6. Prototyping
Finally, hands-on work: in just 20 minutes, pairs built tangible futures prototypes using a card deck of prototyping modes and a template for describing their concept and its impact.
Prototyping modes: Artefact (an object from the future) · Space (a blueprint for a futures room) · Roleplay (a simulation or facilitation guide) · Story (written fiction) · Movement (embodying a future ritual) · Audio/video (a recording from the future)
Concept: Which elements of the scenario are you prototyping? How does this represent the future — and how is the forest’s voice heard in it?
Shifts: What impact would this prototype have? What changed for forests, society, daily life, and people?
7. Showcasing and closing
We closed with each pair presenting their prototype to the group.
1. Exhibition as inspiration
After a short welcome, participants explored the Forest Home exhibition by photographers Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo, guided by three questions: What kind of forests are represented here? What is a forest made of? What is your own relationship with forests? More on the exhibition →
This workshop showed how differently the future looks when imagined through the eyes of the forest. Participants described feeling more connected, more grounded, and more aware of forests as living systems of relationships — not just resources.
We’re clear-eyed about the limits: this was still an exercise run by humans. We didn’t bring forests into the room, and we can’t fully speak on their behalf. Even so, opening space for more-than-human perspectives to shape how we imagine the future proved genuinely insightful.
The takeaway is simple, but powerful: when we widen the circle of who gets to shape the future, entirely new possibilities come into view.