Appennino 2074: la Riserva della Biosfera come laboratorio di future visioning

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development remains central to environmental debates, yet it is increasingly marked by ambiguity and unresolved tensions. UNESCO Biosphere Reserves make these tensions particularly visible, as they seek to reconcile biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development while accommodating multiple, often conflicting interpretations of sustainable development. This article examines the Appennino Tosco-Emiliano Biosphere Reserve as a “container of meanings” shaped by diverse values, priorities, and expectations. Using future visioning as a participatory and reflexive methodological approach, the study explores how local actors negotiate these tensions by collectively imagining preferable futures for the year 2074. Guided by the IPBES Nature Futures Framework, the process makes explicit different ways of valuing nature and reframes local conflicts, such as inhabiting versus visiting, tradition versus innovation, and conservation versus development, into potential synergies. Rather than producing consensus, future visioning functioned as a space of negotiation, enabling the identification of seven context-specific synergies for socio-ecological transformation. The article argues that future visioning does not resolve the ambiguities of sustainable development, but makes them explicit, using the future as a lens to interrogate the present.