EPBRS meeting under Belgian Presidency "Positive visions for Biodiversity"

The collapse so vividly outlined by Jared Diamond is not the only legitimate view of our future.  But the scenarios available to us from the IPCC or the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are not attractive, either.  Can we not create positive visions of the future that take into account the Millennium Development Goals and the targets to be set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, and that describe an achievable living world we would all like to live in? 

Objectives
In a first phase during the first 2 days, a large participatory meeting will develop inspirational, positive, achievable and shared visions for our future and the Nature we want.  It will develop a storyline to show how to reach those alternative futures, and to achieve the targets on the way.  In a second phase, the following 2 days, the results of the discussions will be debated by EPBRS delegates and scientists to suggest a long-term science policy to enable society to move towards these positive visions, and outline options for other policies.

Outcome
The scenarios and positive visions constructed at this meeting will be of global importance. They will be widely publicised and made available to European and International policy processes.  The science policy options will be available to funding agencies to guide their research strategies.

Method
The first 2 days of the meeting will use the 21st Century Town Hall method ® developed by Global Voices, a not-for-profit organisation that has successfully used it to facilitate meetings at Davos, for the Obama election campaign, for the European Citizens’ Deliberation on Brain Science (Meeting of Minds) and in many other high-profile and influential events. The second phase will be a more traditional EPBRS meeting with break-out groups discussing results of the participatory process.

Scope & Players
About 250 Participants for the participatory approach will be selected from a wide range of professions and perspectives to provide an animated debate, they will come mainly from Europe but with representatives from other regions and especially from developing countries for the participatory phase. The purpose is to represent the collective views of influential stakeholders including for example scientists, industrialists, business people, artists, politicians, medias, NGOs etc. The second phase of the meeting will engage about 100 EPBRS delegates and invited experts.