What's an "interspecies council"? A way of bringing more-than-human voices into a deliberation over the environment. And UKGov hosted it
A great pal of AG is Phoebe Tickell, whose Moral Imaginations consultancy is picking up speed in civil society. Today we read a report that the UK Government, no less, had commissioned her practice to run an “interspecies council”. Excerpt;
The council was held as part of a Water Post 2043 project, which the civil service ‘Policy Lab’ division has worked on with a team in DEFRA called DEFRA Futures. The aim of the project is “to explore what decision-making in relation to the freshwater system could look like post 2043, if transformed”.
The idea of an interspecies council is one developed by an organisation called Moral Imaginations, and uses “semi-improvisational, participatory techniques to bring the voice of nature into organisational decision-making”, according to a a blog published published by Policy Lab following the event.
The experimental council focused on the river Roding, and took place in a location next to the river in Barking. According to the Policy Lab blog, 24 participants including DEFRA and Policy Lab staff, along with those with professional or community interest in the local area, came together “to imagine and empathise with the needs of some of the species living in and around the river Roding”.
Each participant was given a different animal, or part of the natural world - such as a river, or fungi - to represent in discussions. The group asked questions such as “What concerns does the bee have? Or a local reed warbler?”
The blog said: “While we can’t truly know the answers to these questions, the process of stepping out of our own shoes can help to deepen empathy and create new perspectives. More-than-human thinking asks us to engage with the needs of both humans and other species in decision-making, recognising that our actions often have an impact beyond people-centred considerations.”
Commenting in a video published alongside the blog, Phil Tovey, head of DEFRA Futures, said: “I must admit I probably as much as anyone else went into this with a bit of scepticism, about [whether we could] just come out with the same insights if we weren’t thinking from the species perspective. But what I actually found was, when we started getting into interspecies dialogue with one another it really brought new insight into the whole way we think about how decisions should be formed with those different ecological relationships.”
During the “interspecies council”
The Policy Lab blog stated that the interspecies council approach “acted as a levelling tool, bringing people with different roles and experiences together and allowing them to find common goals”.
The blog continued: “Rather than achieving an easy consensus, however, the discussions amongst the group highlighted areas of tension which then prompted reflection about potential solutions and compromises. Whilst tracking the impact of this work, we saw an appetite for people to keep engaging, both with each other and the river Roding, weeks after the council had taken place.
“Feedback also suggests that a legacy effect of more-than-human empathy has developed for some; almost all participants reported a noticeable, lasting change within their perception or feelings towards nature, the world or themselves in the week after the council.”
More here. At the top of this post is a video summarising the exercise. Here’s the original government post, and here’s Tickell’s Moral Imaginations site.
Delegate cards for the Roding Interspecies Council