In collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia, in spring 2025 Dr Carolyn Finney facilitated a series of spaces for reflection and experimentation with MSc students and alumni from conservation and development programmes of the partner universities.
Over the course of three workshops, we considered the past, interrogated our present and most importantly, imagined “conservation futures” that allow us all to stand in the right relationship with nature and each other. Participants were offered a space to explore their own story and voice; consider challenges and, to paraphrase philosopher Bayo Akomolafe, embrace the idea that ‘here may be something beyond our perceptual framework’ – a new vision – that is waiting for us, if we are willing to take that leap.
The participants were invited to offer creative contributions to our inquiry as part of our emerging Conservation Futures Dialogues Harvest Repository.
Dig into the offerings emerged from Sowing Seeds:
A Story of Roots and Canopies: Reimagining Conservation in a Changing World
[category] essay
[author] Andres Acosta
[year] 2025
Read here
Gratitude to Providencia
[category] essay
[author] Carolina Soto
[year] 2025
Read here
Our Wild Stories
[category] video
[author] Shona Fernyhough
[year] 2025
View here
A resource guide for the newly curious or non-scientific
[category] Reading list
[author] Beth Pantuliano
[year] 2025
Read here
About Dr. Carolyn finney:
Carolyn Finney, PhD is a storyteller, author and a cultural geographer who is deeply interested in issues related to identity, difference, creativity, and resilience. Grounded in both artistic and intellectual ways of knowing (pursuing an acting career for eleven years and backpacking around the world before returning to school to complete three degrees), she is passionate about interrogating our past and dreaming a future that is liberatory, just and green. Along with public speaking, media engagements, teaching and consulting, she served on the National ParksAdvisoryBoard for eight years under the Obama Administration. She has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Outside Magazine, The Guardian, The Earth Island Journal and Harvard Design Magazine. Her first book, Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship between African Americans and the Great Outdoors was published in 2014. She was a Fulbright Scholar, a Canon National Parks Science Scholar and has received two Mellon Fellowships, including a residency at the New York Botanical Gardens. She is currently working on her second book and is a scholar/artist in residence in the Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury College.
Read more about Carolyn’s work here.
The Conservation Futures Dialogues
Conservation Futures is a provocative and experimental journey initiated by Global Diversity Foundation which moves beyond established dichotomies to examine complexities and explore emergence together. It is an open-ended, open-hearted collective inquiry gathering all actors within the field of conservation to radically reimagine its future and envision collective action to get there.
More about the Conservation Futures Dialogues here.
