By Cristina Dalla Torre (Eurac Research, MARGISTAR Grant Awarding Coordinator)
In this blog, I report my personal experience at the Futures of Natural Resources Conference and reflect on the transformative ways researchers can participate in conferences to achieve the biggest possible positive research and outreach benefits and the least possible negative social-ecological impact.
The Futures of Natural Resources Conference, held in Turku, Finland on June 13-14, 2024, gave me a special opportunity to reflect on the consequences of attending academic conferences. I participated in the conference to disseminate results from the case studies I selected for my PhD thesis, which are also case studies used in the MARGISTAR COST Action. I also participated to gain valuable insights into approaches and methods for including more future literacy and consciousness in tackling the topic of peripheralisation of mountain areas.
The Futures Conference is an event that has been hosted annually for the past 24 years to gather knowledge and knowledge holders on future studies from around the world. This year’s theme was “the Futures of Natural Resources.” This topic is incredibly important as we realise humanity’s impact on Earth through unsustainable resource extraction, leading to multiple interconnected crises such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
MARGISTAR also reflects on these crises from the perspective of marginalised mountain areas, aiming to uncover traps that lead to the peripheralisation of mountain areas and identify transformative pathways for these regions to thrive.
Learning at the Futures of Natural Resources Conference
The conference featured keynote speakers who discussed the importance of considering the futures of natural resources in light of the interconnected crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, and humanity´s impact on surpassing planetary boundaries (Richardson et al., 2023).
Speakers approached the topic from different angles, such as relational and art-based approaches, artificial and collective intelligence, scenarios beyond growth, and bioeconomy. The positionality towards the economic growth paradigm varied, with some taking it as a neutral topic not to be questioned, while others openly criticised it as a fundamental problem.
The conference was an important avenue to disseminate my research, learn from other ongoing research, and exchange and raise questions as well as mutually constructive critics. With my knowledge on social innovations in community-based resource governance, I contributed to the discussion on the futures of natural resources. I learned about relational and art-based approaches to make research more meaningful, how to connect empathically and not just rationally, and to involve the deepest levels of human intelligence and abilities. At the conference, I discussed and brought my concerns on how futures literacy, if it is robustly designed and makes assumptions explicit, can help us act strategically towards preferred futures, the futures we deem preferable for addressing climate, biodiversity, and social crises.
For me, research conferences are positively impactful if they enable big questions and ideas to surface in the participants´ minds.
Asking the Big Questions
Besides my role as researcher, participating in the conference raised a big question to reflect on as MARGISTAR’s Grant Awarding Coordinator: what is the impact of physically participating in conferences on the multiple and interconnected crises we face and on already surpassed planetary boundaries? More and more researchers are questioning the practical impact of disseminating their research by traveling to conferences. While conferences are crucial for rapidly exchanging research, ideas, and critical thinking through personal connections, we must also consider and concretely tackle the critical impacts of travelling and attending.
Air travel and its associated CO2 emissions are significant concerns, but other negative impacts of conferences include the use of natural resources like paper, fossil fuels for plastic, and soil. For instance, the waste generated during coffee breaks, fast consumption due to the intensity of conferences, and the distribution of gadgets and printed materials often result in substantial environmental footprints. I was pleased to see that at the Futures Conference, meals were mostly vegan and vegetarian, which are less resource-intensive options for such large events. Additionally, the conference´s gadget was a tote bag made by a social cooperative based in Turku and with recycled fabrics, emphasizing responsible sourcing.
Conferences are intense moments and can be stressful, often leading us to disconnect from self-care and environmental mindfulness due to our engagement in intellectual conversations. This disconnection can result in increased waste, such as using disposable coffee cups and snacks, staying in resource-intensive accommodations, and rushing from one session to the other without giving us time to digest insights and listen to our personal needs. At this conference, I chose a hostel with shared bathrooms and signs promoting self-organization and waste reduction. I also focused on eating plant-based meals and avoiding overconsumption. Additionally, I tried to reserve some time for myself to rest, restore, immerse myself in Finnish culture and landscapes, and replenish myself in nature to distil the exchanges I had.
My Takeaways for More Sustainable Conference Attendance
Conferences are vital for spreading research ideas and innovation and for establishing personal contacts and networks, but attendance should be meaningful. Researchers should strive for the most positive research and personal impact while minimizing the resources used to attend conferences. Participating in a conference on the topic of the Futures of Natural Resources as a researcher on mountain social-ecological systems led me to some final take-away learnings.
While considering multiple futures according to the Futures Cone (Cork et al., 2023), I reflected that the preferred future for me is one where humans in general and researchers specifically act on multiple interconnected crises and the surpassing of planetary boundaries with compassion and systems thinking. Accordingly, we should question systems of oppression (e.g., colonialism) and related policies that cause or reproduce social-ecological injustice (i.e., of which migration is a consequence) for future generations and for the inhabitants of marginalised areas. For example, mountain areas rich in biodiversity, water, carbon stock, culture, and collective practices of care for the territory are often subject to extraction and economic growth paradigms that disrupt mountains´ delicate social-ecological balance.
In summary, visiting this conference allowed me to start thinking in a more in-depth and consequential way about my own research practices. I now thoroughly believe that researchers should critically reflect on and enact practices that reduce their impact when participating in conferences to ensure the net benefits of expanding research ideas and connections outweigh the negative impacts of waste and fast consumption practices.
The header image shows Cristina disseminating her research during the session on Resource Governance.
