By Anita Lazurko, Sarah Sinclair, Jennifer A. Border, Diana E. Bowler, William H. Morgan, James W. Pearce-Higgins, Paul Woodcock, and Nick J.B. Isaac

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Biodiversity is rapidly declining and decision makers are under pressure to take transformative action. One way decision makers can decide how to take action is by exploring how the future of biodiversity might change under different future conditions or decisions. We call these scenarios. However, there are many different ways to design scenarios, making it unclear which approaches are suitable for answering which policy-related questions. This makes it difficult to compare studies and risks overlooking important drivers of change or opportunities for transformative action.

In this study, we developed a framework to help researchers and practitioners make more intentional and transparent choices in how they design and use scenarios to inform biodiversity policy. We developed the framework through two participatory workshops, a review of existing scenario studies and reflection in a case study about protected areas in the UK. Researchers or practitioners using our framework are guided to select a policy-relevant question the scenario approach is meant to answer, explore established or novel design choices responding to the question, and make a flexible series of decisions aligned to their aims and priorities. Our case study reflection suggests that using the framework can expand the range of drivers of change considered in the scenarios, improve transparency, and support communication across disciplines. Overall, our study provides a flexible tool to strengthen the use of scenarios to explore biodiversity futures.