Futures thinking isn’t about predicting what’s to come—it’s about actively creating it. While often seen as a modern tool, futures thinking has deep roots in ancient cultures. However, the current landscape of futures thinking is predominantly Western-centric, excluding critical perspectives from Indigenous communities, local knowledge holders, and diverse cultural frameworks. 

This programme aims to challenge this imbalance by embracing plural futures and co-creating alternate visions for a more inclusive and just planet.

Creative Futures Spaces serves as a dynamic horizon-scanning tool for selecting emerging themes and opportunities. This will include:

• Explore non-Western methods in futures thinking, challenging dominant narratives and embracing diverse worldviews.
• Lead a collaborative inquiry around the ethical applications of Indigenous knowledge in AI, ensuring cultural sovereignty, protecting the rights of communities over their knowledge and ensuring accountability.
• Embrace diverse perspectives, recognising that the future is a mosaic of interconnected realities.

Recognising a gap in how AI and science fiction could shape conservation, Unearthodox launched the Sci-Fi, AI, and Futures for Nature experiment, laying the foundation for the Creative Futures Spaces programme. During this initial phase, we developed a proof-of-concept AI model designed to analyse sci-fi narratives and uncover fresh perspectives on human-nature interactions.

This work enabled Unearthodox to pinpoint key tensions and debated issues, particularly around ethical considerations such as data sovereignty, inclusivity, and the responsible integration of Indigenous knowledge. It underscored the urgent need for a co-created, culturally sensitive framework.

We believe in the power of meaningful cross-cultural dialogue. Our approach is deeply collaborative, ensuring that the programme actively breaks structural barriers and embraces diversity

• Facilitating Co-Creation: Engaging communities, practitioners, and organisations to capture diverse perspectives that are essential for building just futures
• Building Strategic Alliances: Strengthening cross-sector collaborations to amplify impact and drive systemic change.
• Integrating Diverse Knowledge Systems: Centering Indigenous wisdom, traditional knowledge, and alternative foresight methodologies.

Decolonial Futures for Nature Research

The Decolonial Futures Research represents a radical reimagining of how knowledge is created and shared. By integrating non-Western methodologies, more-than-human kinship concepts, and ethical AI applications, we are not just studying futures – we are actively reconstructing the very foundations of how futures are imagined and understood.

Sci-Fi, AI, and Futures for Nature Experiment

We will harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and speculative storytelling to envision bold, imaginative futures for nature conservation, with a special focus on the ethical use of AI and the respectful incorporation of Indigenous knowledge.