Futures for invasive alien species management: using bottom-up innovations to envision positive systemic change

Abstract

Invasive alien species (IAS) pose a key threat to biodiversity, the economy and human well-being, and continue to increase in abundance and impact worldwide. Legislation and policy currently dominate the global agenda for IAS, although translation to localised success may be limited. This calls for a wider range of responses to transform IAS management. An under-appreciated strategy to achieve success may come from bottom-up, experimental innovations (so-called “seeds”), which offer alternative visions of what may be possible for IAS management in the future. We present an application of a participatory process that builds on such innovations to create alternative visions of the future, with actionable pathways to guide change. Through a series of workshops with practitioners and academics, we used this process to explore alternative positive futures for IAS management in South Africa. We then identified a set of domains of change, that could enable these visions to be actioned by appropriate stakeholders. The domains of change highlight the social–ecological nature of the IAS sector, with interconnected actions needed in financial, cultural, social, technological and governance spheres. Key domains identified were the need to shift mindsets and values of society regarding IAS, as well as the need for appropriate and functional financing. This participatory futuring process offers a way to interrogate and scale bottom-up innovations, thereby creating optimism and allowing stakeholders to engage constructively with the future. This represents an important step in fostering the potential of bottom-up innovations to transform IAS management.

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Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01406-0
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Futures forinvasive alien species management: using bottom‑up
innovations toenvision positive systemic change
J.L.vanVelden1,2 · R.Biggs1,3· T.Hichert1,4· P.Booth· C.Büchner‑Marais1,5· K.J.Esler2,6· M.Lewarne·
L.J.Potgieter2,7· S.J.Rahlao8· A.J.Rebelo6,9· T.B.Robinson2· N.J.vanWilgen2,10· D.M.Richardson2,11
Received: 2 February 2023 / Accepted: 17 August 2023 / Published online: 5 September 2023
© The Author(s) 2023
Abstract
Invasive alien species (IAS) pose a key threat to biodiversity, the economy and human well-being, and continue to increase
in abundance and impact worldwide. Legislation and policy currently dominate the global agenda for IAS, although trans-
lation to localised success may be limited. This calls for a wider range of responses to transform IAS management. An
under-appreciated strategy to achieve success may come from bottom-up, experimental innovations (so-called “seeds”),
which offer alternative visions of what may be possible for IAS management in the future. We present an application of a
participatory process that builds on such innovations to create alternative visions of the future, with actionable pathways
to guide change. Through a series of workshops with practitioners and academics, we used this process to explore alterna-
tive positive futures for IAS management in South Africa. We then identified a set of domains of change, that could enable
these visions to be actioned by appropriate stakeholders. The domains of change highlight the social–ecological nature of
the IAS sector, with interconnected actions needed in financial, cultural, social, technological and governance spheres. Key
domains identified were the need to shift mindsets and values of society regarding IAS, as well as the need for appropriate
and functional financing. This participatory futuring process offers a way to interrogate and scale bottom-up innovations,
thereby creating optimism and allowing stakeholders to engage constructively with the future. This represents an important
step in fostering the potential of bottom-up innovations to transform IAS management.
Keywords Futures· Biological invasions· Invasion science· Non-native species· Scenarios· Transformative change·
Visioning
Handled by Shalini Dhyani, G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan
Environment and Development, India.
P. Booth and M. Lewarne are independent consultants.
* J. L. van Velden
juliavanvelden@sun.ac.za
1 Centre forSustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch
University, 19 Jonkershoek Road, Mostertsdrift,
Stellenbosch7600, SouthAfrica
2 Present Address: Centre forInvasion Biology, Department
ofBotany andZoology, Stellenbosch University,
Stellenbosch7600, SouthAfrica
3 Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University,
10691Stockholm, Sweden
4 Hichert andAssociates, SomersetWest7130, SouthAfrica
5 Stellenbosch University Water Institute, Stellenbosch7600,
SouthAfrica
6 Department ofConservation Ecology andEntomology,
Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch7600, SouthAfrica
7 Department ofBiological Sciences, University ofToronto
Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, ONM1C1A4,
Canada
8 Scientific Services, Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife,
Pietermaritzburg3201, SouthAfrica
9 Natural Resources andEngineering, Water Science Unit,
Agricultural Research Council, P.O. Box8783, Pretoria0001,
SouthAfrica
10 Cape Research Centre, South African National Parks,
CapeTown, SouthAfrica
11 Institute ofBotany, Czech Academy ofSciences, Průhonice,
CzechRepublic
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2568 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
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Introduction
Invasive alien species (IAS) are one of the five direct
drivers of global change in the Anthropocene, with an
estimated 20% of Earth’s surface at risk from invasions
(Balvanera etal. 2019). Globally, IAS are a key threat to
many endangered species and habitats (Crooks 2002; Max-
well etal. 2016), while also presenting threats to human
health, wellbeing and economies (Pyšek and Richardson
2010; Rai and Singh 2020). Despite increases in policy-
orientated research in invasion science (Pinto etal. 2022)
and in the development and implementation of legislation
and agreements to manage and prevent this threat, there
appears to be no saturation in the accumulation of alien
species introductions worldwide (Seebens etal. 2017).
This trend is linked to the complexity of the invasion pro-
cess, which is affected by systemic global changes, includ-
ing environmental change (e.g. climate change, ocean
acidification), socio-economic drivers (e.g. globalised
trade, human migration, land use change, socio-economic
development) and socio-cultural drivers (e.g. awareness
and values, communication, recreation and tourism) (Essl
etal. 2020). Although there may be localised successes
in preventing invasions and managing their impacts, the
complexity of biological invasions as a both driver and
passenger of change, combined with a lack of strategic,
innovative and appropriately resourced management has
led to a sector that is dominated by negative stories, trends,
and a perception by many that, globally, we are “losing the
battle” to appropriately manage IAS (Pyšek etal. 2020).
Futuring approaches provide a way to visualise and plan
for different possibilities and interpretations of how the
future may unfold, and to prioritise actions in the pre-
sent which may lead to more desirable conditions for IAS
management going forward (Miller 2018). For example,
the scenarios developed by Roura-Pascual etal. (2021) to
understand how social change may affect global biological
invasions, highlight the potential for continued increases
in IAS, and the need for large–scale change to prevent
further spread. There are a wide range of approaches to
generate such scenarios, ranging from quantitative model-
ling approaches, qualitative narratives of the future, and
hybrid approaches that combine the two (Hichert etal.
2021b). Generally, future scenarios in the field of inva-
sion science use predominantly quantitative approaches.
However, qualitative or hybrid approaches have been valu-
able in exploring the future of complex social–ecological
systems, given novel emergent dynamics and unanticipated
drivers of change which may reshape system dynamics
(Swart etal. 2004). Such novel dynamics are not well-
accounted for in quantitative approaches, which tend
to be constrained by past and present understanding of
dominant system drivers and dynamics. Qualitative futur-
ing approaches that focus on “weak signals” or “wild
cards”as first indications of impending changes, can
highlight potentially radically alternative future pathways
(Cook etal. 2014). These signals can take the form of
bottom-up initiatives that have transformative potential
(Bennett etal. 2016). Exploring how such initiatives may
help to create a more ecologically and socially sustain-
able world in the future may provide an underappreciated
source of knowledge and capability for tackling invasions
(Wiek and Iwaniec 2014; Bennett etal. 2016).
Recent reviews of innovations in the field of invasion biol-
ogy suggest several emerging innovations and approaches
which may become increasingly transformative in tackling
the challenge of IAS in the future (Ricciardi etal. 2017; van
Rees etal. 2022). These include technological innovations
such as gene editing, detection via remote sensing or envi-
ronmental DNA (eDNA), data collection via technology-
assisted citizen science and data sharing via open-source
databases. However, most of these innovations are top-down
approaches initiated and coordinated by governments, large
corporations, or non-profit organisations. Innovations in
the IAS field also often take the form of policy approaches.
International agreements (e.g. the Convention on Biologi-
cal Diversity, Article 8h), national-level legislation and
reporting (e.g. van Wilgen and Wilson 2018) and voluntary
self-regulation (e.g. in the horticultural or pet-trade indus-
tries; Niemiera and von Holle 2009) have been focal areas.
Although some nations have prioritised the prevention and
management of IAS (e.g. New Zealand; Peltzer etal. 2019)
many countries lack the capacity to address the threat of
invasions (Turbelin etal. 2017). A further key problem with
the use of policy or top-down approaches is that they are
geared towards supporting existing regimes, typically those
implicated in creating the problem in the first place (Castro-
Arce and Vanclay 2020).
The current focus on top-down approaches in IAS man-
agement may ignore the substantial contribution of local or
bottom-up innovations that emerge organically from society.
These kinds of initiatives are rooted in particular contexts
and are often driven by engaged citizens, responding to per-
sistent problems in their society (Castro-Arce and Vanclay
2020). Such initiatives may be vital in creating “transforma-
tive change,” systemic changes that fundamentally alter a
society’s culture, institutions, and practices (Loorbach etal.
2020), which are increasingly recognised as being critical to
addressing the social and environmental sustainability chal-
lenges facing society (Díaz etal. 2019; IPBES 2019). Trans-
formative innovations, often called “social innovations”, are
initiatives which both change the system in which they are
embedded and respond to social needs and challenges (Dias
and Partidário 2019). This literature stresses that transforma-
tive innovations will not simply be technological, but also
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2569Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
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social, including processes, practices, design and policies,
with the primary objective of provoking transformations of
the system via shifts in power, values and routines (West-
ley etal. 2017). Social innovations may come in the form
of local experimentation, producer/consumer-driven solu-
tions, policy-driven innovations and recognition of indig-
enous solutions (Ziegler etal. 2022). For such innovations
to become truly transformative they must also have the
potential to be amplified in some way, either by scaling out
(impact greater numbers of people or environments), scal-
ing up (impact higher levels of institutions via policy) or
scaling deep (impact culture, beliefs and norms) (Lam etal.
2020b). Scalable innovations are flexible and accessible and
can be used easily by individuals, businesses, researchers
and entrepreneurs, who can develop them to create further
novel solutions (Loorbach etal. 2020). A recent review of
social innovations for biodiversity did not yield any results
of this framing’s application to IAS and therefore is a par-
ticular area for further exploration (Ziegler etal. 2022). Such
innovations can offer radical alternatives to current thinking,
especially related to what the future may look like and in
this way counteract pessimism and polarisation (Loorbach
etal. 2020).
We apply a participatory future visioning approach to the
problem of invasive species management in South Africa,
with the goal of exploring existing bottom-up IAS manage-
ment initiatives that may help to create a more ecologically
and socially sustainable future. We use the “Seeds of Good
Anthropocenes” approach (Bennett etal. 2016) to gener-
ate these alternative futures and also pilot an extension of
this process, where we identify clusters of actions to be
undertaken by different actor groups, to arrive at pathways
for change that are more explicitly defined. We discuss the
potential contribution of qualitative, normative visioning
processes to IAS management.
Participatory future visioning processes
Participatory future visioning processes are a foundation
of futures thinking, research and practice (Schultz 2015a).
Foresight and futuring approaches allow individuals, organ-
isations, or communities to explore the future to prepare
for known risks, discern a target to aim for, or understand
possible future “discontinuities”—substantial and possibly
abrupt future changes that lead to novel and unexpected
pathways (Miller 2015). Importantly, futures thinking is not
merely a prediction tool, estimating future conditions based
on current conditions and defined drivers of change (e.g.
weather prediction). Rather, it is a methodological suite of
approaches that provide a way to incorporate both data and
people’s individual or collective understanding and values,
to explore and engage with the future (Peterson etal. 2003;
Dator 2019). Futures thinking has become an increasingly
participatory process, which may have diverse objectives,
including empowering stakeholders, stimulating innovation
or social learning, managing conflicts, improving govern-
ance systems, and incorporating diverse knowledge types
(Oteros-Rozas etal. 2015).
Participatory futuring methods have been identified
by van Rees etal. (2022) as an area of innovation for IAS
research and are increasingly used in the field (Table1).
These methods range in their desired goals (e.g. increasing
awareness of change or exploring dimensions of uncertainty)
and can be applied at different spatial (e.g. local, biome-
specific, regional, global) and temporal scales (i.e. the time
into the future being projected). This highlights the versatil-
ity of these methods and their potential value in addressing
challenges faced in IAS management.
The futuring approaches most commonly used at pre-
sent in IAS research do not, however, facilitate participa-
tory “visioning”: developing normative representations of
a desirable future, which consider the goals of the partici-
pants and explore pathways to the goals (Wiek and Iwaniec
2014; Johansson 2021). Visioning attempts to reveal barriers
and opportunities within current dominant structures, and
thereby facilitate systemic transformative change (Bennett
etal. 2016). This is necessary in the face of the massive
global challenges of the Anthropocene, where responsive
approaches and dystopian visions of the future alone do not
provide the necessary impetus for real change (McPhearson
etal. 2016). Visioning therefore has a key role to play in
research and decision-making, by facilitating the develop-
ment of visions of a desired future, and identifying strate-
gies to transition to desirable futures, while actively avoiding
undesirable futures (Wiek and Iwaniec 2014). Participatory
visioning approaches have been used to explore a wide range
of issues such as land-use planning (Soria-Lara etal. 2021),
food system resilience (Sellberg etal. 2020), local sustain-
ability challenges (Lam etal. 2020a), landscape ecology
(Iverson Nassauer and Corry 2004), biodiversity conserva-
tion (Chitakira etal. 2012) and urban transformations (McP-
hearson etal. 2016).
Although all visions of the future are subjective and
depend on the worldviews of the participants who generate
them, such visions can serve as a guide towards ambitious
transformation which meets the normative goals of society.
They can also be robust. Criteria, developed by Wiek and
Iwaniec (2014) for creating useful and high-quality visions
serve as a guide. These criteria include the need to be based
in the principles of sustainability (i.e. have a normative
framing), to use systemic thinking in the process (i.e. have
interconnected visions), be internally coherent (i.e. free of
incompatibilities and conflicting goals), be plausible (i.e.
grounded in reality), be tangible (i.e. provide enough struc-
ture for meaningful action), be relevant (i.e. have relevance
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2570 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
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Table 1 Examples of participatoryfuturing approaches used in invasive alien species (IAS) research and management literature
Method Method description Example from IAS litera-
ture
Goal of paper Future time scale Scale Participants
Scenario archetypes Elaborates on “generic”
images of the future by
redesigning objectives
under each archetype.
Typical archetypes are
Growth, Collapse, Disci-
pline and Transform; or
emission scenarios
Groeneveld etal. (2018) Considers the implications
of marine invasive spe-
cies in Europe using the
SRES (Special Report on
Emissions Scenarios) as
a starting archetype
30years (2050) Continental Economists, ecologists,
policy scientists, user
groups
2 × 2 double uncertainty
matrix
Explores dimensions of
uncertainty by creating
opposite extremes of
key drivers of change.
Generates a four-cell
matrix, representing four
alternative futures
Roura-Pascual etal. (2021) Develops new global
scenarios based on
drivers of change that
were the most relevant
and most uncertain,
including politics and
demography, economy
and trade, lifestyles and
values, technology, and
environmental/natural
resource drives
30years (2050) Global Invasion biology experts
Roura-Pascual etal. (2011) Constructs four plausible
futures for specific plant
invader species in the
Cape Floristic Region
30years (2040) Biome specific Researchers and managers
of IAS in the region
Drivers of uncer-
tainty + best/worst case
scenarios
Explores dimensions of
uncertainty via an expert-
informed process to
select drivers of change,
which are then param-
eterised into scenarios
according to their best
and worst cases
Essl etal. (2020) Constructs two best-and
worst-case scenarios for
15 relevant drivers of
future potential impacts
of biological invasions
in different contexts
(zonobiomes, taxonomic
groups, realms and
socio-economic develop-
ment contexts)
30 years (2050) Global Experts of invasion science,
land-use change, global
change, scenario construc-
tion, elicitation processes
and environmental politics
Delphi Increases awareness
of change via itera-
tive assessments from
experts to describe future
developments of a given
topic, with the aim of
consensus
Lauber etal. (2016) Develops a range of
estimates for how IAS
could affect recreational
fisheries, and identify
uncertainties affecting
the likelihood of various
futures in the Laurentian
Great Lakes
n/a Location specific Aquatic ecologists and
fisheries managers
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2571Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
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Informed by Hichert etal. (2021a, b)
Table 1 (continued)
Method Method description Example from IAS litera-
ture
Goal of paper Future time scale Scale Participants
Horizon scan + Delphi Increases awareness of
change via identification
of new and emerg-
ing issues and existing
trends, using systematic
information gathering.
Combined with consen-
sus-based exercises
Wilson etal. (2020) Develops four scenarios
for biological invasions
in South Africa from a
horizon scan of trajecto-
ries for humanity, based
on emerging drivers of
global change
5 and 50 years (2025,
2070)
Country specific Local invasion biology
experts
Roy etal. (2014) Uses a consensus-based
approach to develop a
ranked list of potential
future IAS in the Euro-
pean Union, based on a
horizon scan of potential
threats
10years Continental Invasion biology experts
with expertise across
representative geography/
taxonomy
Model-based scenarios Parameterises a set of
scenarios generated by
experts into a quan-
titative model (e.g.
economic, food webs)
to generate numerical
estimates of change
Ready etal. (2016) Generates a set of expert-
derived ecological
scenarios about possible
effects of IAS on fish
populations in the Great
Lakes. Then, uses an
angling model to project
the impact that scenarios
would have on angler
behaviour and net eco-
nomic value of fishing
n/a Location-specific Aquatic ecologists and fish-
eries managers (govern-
ment and academic)
Narrative scenarios, 2 × 2
uncertainty matrix,
mechanistic models,
archetypes
Integrative/Combina-
tion approaches which
use a combination of
data-driven and expert-
informed scenario
approaches to generate
a set of narratives about
the future, which are
then used for quantitative
models
Lenzner etal. (2019) Proposes an integrated
conceptual framework
for the development of
scenarios and models on
how IAS richness/impact
may change in the future,
by creating qualitative
narratives, quantification
of the impacts of drivers
and the development
of numerical models
or their application to
archetypes
Model-dependant Global Multiple expert panels
proposed, including sci-
entists, stakeholders, and
decision-makers
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2572 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
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to real stakeholders who can undertake action), be nuanced
(i.e. prioritised by desirability), be motivational (spark
action), and finally, be shared (i.e. have a level of consensus,
while highlighting diversity). Specific design principles can
be used to help achieve these criteria, such as being con-
ducted in a meaningful and iterative sequence, using tech-
niques to stimulate thinking beyond negative futures, and
being participatory by involving diverse stakeholders (Wiek
and Iwaniec 2014). By engaging with such good practice
criteria, visioning can provide a useful addition to the tool-
box used to address complex social–ecological challenges.
The “Seeds ofGood Anthropocenes” initiative
A particularly promising approach to participatory vision-
ing can be found in the global initiative “Seeds of Good
Anthropocenes” (SOGA; Bennett etal. 2016; https:// gooda
nthro pocen es. net). SOGA combines the ideas of transforma-
tive bottom-up innovations with futures thinking approaches.
Ultimately, this initiative aims to solicit and develop alterna-
tive visions of the future to create so-called “good Anthro-
pocenes”—positive futures that have the characteristics of
achieving the dual goals of human wellbeing and sustain-
ability. This phrase is plural, as different people or societies
may have different, and equally valid, ideas about what a
“good” future may look like. The conceptual ideas of SOGA
have been applied to several issues, including sustainability,
food security, energy issues and biodiversity (Pereira etal.
2018; Falardeau etal. 2019; Raudsepp-Hearne etal. 2020;
Sellberg etal. 2020; Hamann etal. 2020; Jiménez-Aceituno
etal. 2020; Lam etal. 2020a; Lin etal. 2021; Lazurko and
Keys 2022).
SOGA aims to provide an alternative to prevailing
negative and apocalyptic visions of the future, which may
impact humanity’s ability to creatively construct conditions
for a more positive future for the Earth. However, it can
be challenging to imagine such radically different futures.
By anchoring futures with existing initiatives, more realistic
pathways towards radical positive futures can be identified.
To achieve this, SOGA uses the concepts of “seeds,” which
are defined as small-scale or experimental projects or initia-
tives that are not currently dominant or mainstream but have
the potential to become transformative in some way (Ben-
nett etal. 2016; Hamann etal. 2020). These seeds employ
new ways of thinking or doing, such as innovative social
institutions, technologies, or frameworks, and they often
use a bottom-up approach for transformative change. The
potential for scaling these seeds and therefore creating fur-
ther transformative impact beyond its original context is a
key consideration. For example, Predator Free New Zealand
(Russell etal. 2015; https:// www. tuiat etaiao. nz/) has been
identified as a seed initiative due to its innovative approach
towards eliminating invasive alien predators in New Zealand
by 2050. It works with multiple stakeholders to ensure broad
public support and involvement and, in this way, articulate
a new vision for the country’s environment. The project
started with isolated offshore islands and has since spread
to a significant portion of mainland New Zealand, indicat-
ing the approach’s potential to be replicated on other islands
with endemic species threatened by invasive predators.
The SOGA process (Pereira etal. 2018) is grounded in
the criteria for creating high-quality visions of the future
(Wiek and Iwaniec 2014) and has several beneficial potential
outcomes, which have practical utility to fields like invasive
species management. Firstly, it is based on the idea of creat-
ing positive and motivational visions, which have a strong
anchor to reality (seeds). It uses specific tools to encourage
a systemic understanding of the issue (see “Methods”). This
approach also encourages participants to explore the land-
scape of innovation at a general level, to gain an overview of
new approaches and stakeholders, and therefore shift from
a problem-centred to a strengths-based approach (Hamann
etal. 2020). Further, it allows connections between different
sectors to be made by providing these actors with a canvas
for dialogue. These connections can allow collaborations
to “germinate”, and, along with the positive nature of the
visions, develop agency and a shared understanding of the
problem (Falardeau etal. 2019). Another beneficial outcome
of the SOGA process is the development of “futures liter-
acy”, the awareness of the potential of current contexts to
contribute to desired futures and making different attitudes
about the future explicit (Sharpe etal. 2016). This SOGA
process has alsobeen used in the creation oftool such as
the IPBES Nature Futures Framework, which additionally
provides a heuristic tool to map visions onto three people-
nature value orientations, thus providing a boundary object
for practitioners and policymakers to reflect specifically on
values (Pereira etal. 2020). Ultimately, the SOGA process
generates a set of focal points for practical actions to for-
ward the desired vision of the future, including articulat-
ing who might be best placed to undertake a specific action
(Chesterman etal. 2022). We applied the Seeds of Good
Anthropocenes approach to the issue of invasive alien spe-
cies management in South Africa, as a case study, focussing
on creating these points of action for realising visions and
guiding further research.
Methods
Case study: IAS management inSouth Africa
South Africa has a long and rich history of IAS manage-
ment (van Wilgen etal. 2022). Despite a huge investment
of resources, biological invasions currently pose the second
largest threat to biodiversity, after habitat transformation, in
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2573Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
most of South Africa (Van Wilgen etal. 2020c). The coun-
try hosts an estimated 1422 alien species (Van Wilgen etal.
2020a) and control operations are struggling to keep pace
with the increasing number of species, the extent of invasive
alien species and the escalation in the types, magnitude and
complexity of impacts caused or exacerbated by invasions.
Woody invasive alien plants, especially trees, pose a par-
ticular problem due to their impacts on water and fire risk
(Le Maitre etal. 2016). The approach to managing invasive
plants in South Africa currently centres around governmen-
tal public works programmes, especially the “Working for
Water” (WfW) programme (but other programmes such as
“Working on Fire” also contribute). These programmes pri-
marily focus on large-scale job creation for unemployed and/
or previously disadvantaged groups, by providing funding
for smaller operations to undertake IAS control within the
WfW framework, and have been hailed as a bold, innova-
tive approach to IASmanagement (van Wilgen etal. 2022).
Despite the unique nature of the WfW programme and
the relatively large investment made into the programme,
invasions in South Africa have increased, and control only
extends to a limited portion of invaded areas (van Wilgen
and Wannenburgh 2016). A recent review found that the
goal of decreasing or slowing the erosion of ecosystem ser-
vices by invasive alien plants has not consistently been met
across South Africa (van Wilgen etal. 2022). To date, the
principal objective of WfW to maximise employment across
as broad an area as possible has resulted in available funds
being spread too thinly to meet environmental goals, and, in
many cases, social goals as well (van Wilgen etal. 2022).
The main metric monitored is ‘person days’ of employment,
which provides no indication of improvement in ecosystem
services and is a poor indicator of socioeconomic impact,
given the short-term, unstable nature of these contracts
(van Wilgen and Wannenburgh 2016). The programme has
been relatively inflexible in its ability to respond to new
priorities and discontinuing lower priority projects has been
unsuccessful due to the inability to withdraw funding tied
to the poverty relief aspect of the programme (van Wilgen
and Wannenburgh 2016). The programme is also adminis-
tratively intensive, and funding cycles often do not coin-
cide with crucial times for follow-up clearing. This means
that adaptive management is often not possible in practice,
and innovations are difficult to incorporate into the system.
Agile, local solutions that build on initial government invest-
ment are therefore needed. A comprehensive review of the
IAS management and research sector in South Africa can be
found in Van Wilgen etal. (2020a).
While the situation would be much worse without these
control efforts, and localised successes (especially using
biological control) do exist (van Wilgen etal. 2020b), there
is a general feeling that South Africa is “losing the bat-
tle” against IAS and their impacts on the environment and
society. Key challenges to effective management include
poor monitoring, a lack of ecological indicators of success,
short-term and disjointed funding, working in a bureaucratic
and opaque institutional context, a lack of buy-in from civil
society, patchy approaches which do not focus on the worst
invaders or the most invaded areas, a lack of a comprehen-
sive and responsive policy environment, a lack of strategies
specific to particular invasions, ineffective land manage-
ment, and a research-management information gap (Shack-
leton etal. 2016; Foxcroft etal. 2020; Lukey and Hall 2020;
Wilson etal. 2020; Cheney etal. 2020). Conflicts of inter-
est also greatly complicate the management of many of the
most widespread invasive plants (van Wilgen and Richard-
son 2012). Similarly, invasive alien animal control has had
mixed success and struggles with stakeholder management
and a high degree of conflict (Davies etal. 2020). These
challenges cause inconsistent results and failures, resulting
in disillusionment in the management sector. This context
provides a prime opportunity to investigate alternate meth-
ods and the incentive to re-envision the future.
Seeds ofGood Anthropocenes process
The visioning process used in the Seeds of Good Anthropo-
cene initiative uses a novel scenario-building method which
combines two futuring tools: “Futures Wheels” and “Three
Horizons Frameworks” (Pereira etal. 2018; Hamann etal.
2020), also called a Manoa Mash-up. The original Manoa
method was developed to create divergent thinking and max-
imise the difference from the present (Schultz 2015b), and is
based on the use of Futures Wheels (see below). The Manoa
Mash-up adds a Three Horizons tool to this process. The
SOGA process additionally uses the “seeds” concept as a
starting point for generating visions and facilitating discus-
sions about the future. The goal of this process is to stimu-
late creativity in how participants approach complex issues
and move beyond dystopic visions of the future towards
collectively creating positive pathways for systemic change
(Bennett etal. 2016; Pereira etal. 2018).
We applied the SOGA approach in a workshop held on
4 May 2022, in Stellenbosch, South Africa, with the aim
of exploring innovative initiatives in the field of IAS flora
and fauna management, and their potential to create differ-
ent futures for this sector in South Africa. The key compo-
nents of the process are summarised in Fig.1. The primary
goals of this workshop were to build optimism by exploring
potentially transformative futures that build on existing ini-
tiatives; to understand common barriers to scaling up ideas
and to facilitate knowledge sharing between practitioners,
researchers, and policymakers. The workshop was attended
by 19 participants, from diverse institutions and sectors, and
included academics, practitioners and policy makers. The
participants were split into four groups of approximately
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2574 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
five diverse members, based on factors such as professional
role (e.g. academic, policy, practitioner) and gender. This
participant number is the standard practice for conducting
SOGA workshops, to allow for in-depth discussions between
groups, and for dynamics within groups (e.g. Pereira etal.
2018; Sellberg etal. 2020).
A diverse set of seeds that form the basis for the vision-
ing process were identified through literature and internet
searching, expert interviews and snowballing. Once an ini-
tial list of South African IAS seeds had been developed by
the lead author, a subset of 12 of the most divergent seeds,
or those which were of particular interest to the participant
group, were identified as a starting point for the workshop.
These were selected by the project team to provide diverse
examples across sub-sectors within IAS management e.g.
alternative uses of invasive species or alternative financing
models, and therefore the selection was non-random. Some
participants were actively involved in certain starting seeds,
but they were not placed in groups to which those seeds
were allocated, to prevent one individual from dominating
the thinking on a specific seed. A short description of each
of these 12 seeds was sent to the participants prior to the
workshop (available in TableS1).
Context for the day was provided through presentations
on (1) the uses and opportunities of futures thinking in the
face of global change, including climate change, globalisa-
tion and inequality; and (2) the forces of change applicable
to IAS, based on the current global literature. The latter
included a discussion of the predicted continued increase in
invasions worldwide, the issue of invasion debt, scenarios
for global invasions that have been developed, and probable
drivers of future invasions.
With this priming, the first exercise in the SOGA process,
i.e. developing “futures wheels”, was started (Glenn 1972).
Each of the four groups received three divergent seeds, along
with a description of the seed in its “mature form”—that
is if the seed grew or transformed to become part of main-
stream, everyday activities. Groups then completed a futures
wheels exercise for each seed, where the first-order impacts
are placed in a concentric circle around the mature seed,
and the second wave of impacts/consequences are placed
in another circle around the first. These impacts are broken
down in terms of their Social, Technological, Economic,
Environmental, and Political impacts, as well as impacts on
Values (known as STEEP-V domains). The futures wheels
thus help participants to develop connections between an
emerging change (or seed) and its consequences (Pereira
2021). The three completed futures wheels within each
group were then placed next to one another to compare and
connect their content. This exercise ended with asking par-
ticipants to identify common themes and components which
would make up their vision of the future and explain their
thinking to the whole group.
The next step in the process uses the Three Horizons
Framework (Curry and Hodgson 2008), which enriches the
future narratives generated during the futures wheels exer-
cise. This framework facilitates an understanding of emerg-
ing change, how this influences today’s dominant conditions
and what needs to change to enable alternative futures to
Fig. 1 Process diagram, illustrating the data sources, activities, and
discussions used in a series of workshops in South Africa. Insert: fig-
ure key
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2575Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
emerge (Pereira 2021). Three Horizons is a visual diagram
(Fig.2) that helps facilitate these conversations (Curry and
Hodgson 2008), as it centres on three different “horizons”
or depictions of systems in different timescales; the past,
the future, and the transitions between them. The first hori-
zon (H1) reflects current conditions and asks participants to
specify what about the current conditions they would like
to see diminish, and what “pockets of the future” they like
to see expand. The next step populates the third horizon
(H3), which is the desired future that the participants began
identifying in the futures wheels exercise. The final step in
the process is to identify the intermediate stages between H1
and H3. This transition phase (H2) describes what needs to
fundamentally change for H3 to occur. This stage therefore
represents the medium-term and is often unstable as trans-
formations happen (Curry and Hodgson 2008). At this stage,
each group was tasked with articulating achievable “next
steps” and actions to be taken to move the seeds from the H1
to the H3. Most of the discussion concentrated on H2. Each
workshop group completed one of these diagrams, which
were then presented to the rest of the groups and discussed.
The final step of the workshop was to use both the futures
wheels and the Three Horizon diagrams to discuss common
actions, barriers, and opportunities for growth across groups.
Following the workshop, the participants were invited to
complete an online evaluation form to understand their per-
ceptions of the workshop, whether it was able to meet its
goals, and how to improve the process (responses in Fig. S7).
Thematic clustering andstakeholder actions
A criticism of the SOGA approach is that it is some-
times difficult to move directly to action from the Three
Horizons tool, as the mechanism for undertaking the
transition steps in the second horizon typically requires
a number of power shifts amongst stakeholders (Rutting
etal. 2022). Expanding on the current SOGA approach,
we therefore ran an additional follow-up mini-workshop
to identify actionable domains of changeand associated
stakeholder-specific actions needed to move from the pre-
sent to the desired future (based partly on Chesterman
etal. 2022). During this workshop, the majority of the
co-authors of this paper (n = 11; all of whom attended the
initial workshop) evaluated the outcomes of the workshop
and identified “domains of change” or core thematic areas
associated with a cluster of related actions. During this
mini-workshop, we clustered the transition actions gen-
erated in horizon 2 of the Three Horizons process, and
the actions/opportunities identified in the final workshop
discussion, by grouping similar actions together, using the
online whiteboard platform Miro (miro.com). Initially,
this was achieved using the STEEP-V framework, for a
deductive clustering approach. All participants logged
in to the software and were encouraged to move sticky
notes of actions to others that were of a similar STEEP-V
domain, for example, an economic action or an environ-
mental action. If an action fitted between two STEEP-V
domains, the participants could place it in between these
domains. These groupings were then examined, and a fur-
ther inductive round of clustering was done, where some
actions were moved to another group of a similar nature,
even if it was in another STEEP-V domain. For example,
harnessing technological advancements such as mobile
applications (technological domain) and funding scien-
tific research centres (economic domain) were both seen,
on reflection, to be about making strategic investments into
research and technology.
The final groups of actions were then given a descriptive
name and inserted into a “stakeholder matrix”, which listed
a set of stakeholders who could potentially achieve actions in
IAS management (see TableS2). These stakeholder groups
were initially developed by workshop facilitators and then
discussed with the mini-workshop participants to check for
relevance. In this final step, the actions under each domain
of change were distributed across the different stakeholders,
according to the stakeholder group/s who could undertake
the action. Actions could be listed under multiple stake-
holder groups, or in some cases, identified as an action
requiring participation from all stakeholders.
Results
One of the group’s outputs is presented as a worked example
(Box1). The outputs from the other three workshop groups
are presented in Figs. S1–S6.
Fig. 2 The Three Horizons Framework, indicating the decline of the
first horizonrepresenting current conditions(solid line), the increase
of the third horizon from emerging innovations/seeds to a specific
vision of the future(small dashed line), and the transitional or inter-
mediary second horizon(large dashed line)
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2576 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
Box1: Worked example ofGroup A’s outputs
fromthe“Seeds ofSuccess” workshop
The group presented in this worked example started with
three “seed” initiatives. The first seed was related to
“hack groups”- engaged groups of citizens who actively
steward local natural areas or conservancies by removing
alien plants as a social/community service activity. The
mature state of this seed was conceptualised as “Every
community in South Africa has a hack group of one form
or another covering all aspects of tackling aliens, from
'as a sport' to youth development”. The second seed was
based on a private company which uses a flock of trained
goats to manage alien plants and restore landscapes, in a
stepped approach. This was conceptualised in a mature
form as “All densely invaded areas are easily able to
access a service that provides low-carbon, natural forms
of mechanical control, such as goats, which can also seed
indigenous plants into cleared areas”. The third seed pre-
sented to this group was a water fund, which is an innova-
tive governance and funding model where downstream
users of water pay for the upstream restoration of catch-
ments. This was conceptualised in its mature form as “All
metros and large towns in South Africa have effective,
ring-fenced water funds in place that incorporate alien
clearing”. These three seeds were used as the starting
point for the group’s three futures wheels (Fig.3).
These initial ideas were then further developed by
each group using a Three Horizons diagram. Group A
identified a future (Fig.4, Horizon 3, purple) grounded
in ecological infrastructure approaches and in chang-
ing the economic system around IAS, via predictable,
blended finance models, and creating new and inno-
vative markets for IAS products. This also included
a need for markets to lead the way in greening of
society, with strong links between the IAS sector and
Allmetros have
effective ringfenced
water fundsthat
incorporate alien
clearing & bring
together water
providers, water
users
Social:
Human behavior is
altered&water is
honored appropriately;
civil societyhas water
warriors who track
abuse/waste
Technological:
Strong monitoring
(real time water
availability/use/mon
itoring); landscape
scale
Economic:
Defined water
footprint for
metros; flexible
pricing (dry vs.
wet goods)
Environmental:
Must look at many
areas: mountain
catchments/riparia
n/wetlands
Political:
Legally binding
agreement;
permanent obligation
to manage e.g.
stewardship
Values:
Greater
willingness to pay
the real price for
water; use less;
corporate
inclusion
Value-change
in public
reporting
Financial
incentives for
water; investments
formalized in
banking sector;
greeninvestment
Economic
infrastructure is
valued in the same
way as conventional
infrastructure like
bridges/dams
Watershed
ecosystems
services are
valued and
incorporated
into investment
Govs have
itemized
budgets/IAS
that takes water
fund impacts
into account
x
Water laws are
integrated into
water funds Ecological
function for water
storage and
services in place;
incentives and
easements Water security
(too much and too
little managed)
Will expand
to water
funds for
agriculture
Economic
incentive;
auditable for
water
Open app
platforms for
defining
water
footprints
”Institutionalarrangements we need
in the future looks like a far more
blended institutional mix, not just
between institutions, both public and
private”
“The idea of a green infrastructure not
being seen as infrastructure [is
incorrect]...why isn't it up there alongside
dams, roads, all the conventional
infrastructure? That's how we should
value our ecological infrastructure.”
Invaded areascan
access servicesthat
provide low carbon &
natural mechanical
control,e.g. goats,
which can also seed
indigenousplants
Social:
Nature-basedsolutions
mainstreamed into
schools; increased
prestige associated
with goatherding
Technological:
Automated
fencing systems;
movements of
animals
Economic:
improved market
for goat meat;
potential in goat
related SMMEs
Environmental:
Ecosystem
appropriate grazing
index for best
practice guidelines
for grazing
Political:
Agricultural
incentives;
mainstreaming nature-
based solutions into
political rhetoric
Values:
Animal/plant/human
interactions are
recognized &valued;
indigenous knowledge;
goat=new mutton
Research provides
evidence of best
practice&win-win
benefits of control
methods
Transportvalues
change
Valueadded
products from
goatse.g.
composting
Socially
acceptable for
South Africa
Herdercommunities
creating appropriate
products and
businesses
Otherspecies
managed to clear
spread e.g.,
eland, pigs, cows
Thriving cooperative
agriculture economy
(internal and
external)
“There were a lot more economic opportunities
around invasive plant management... now you've
got increased prestige for goat herding…you've
got a whole shift in the way that people think
socially, culturally and economically around
goats”
“Similarly, we hadatheme of economic
opportunity around biomass, but it's not our
conventional thinking of biomass, just a whole
big pile of wattle lying on the ground and not
returning something useful. Now we're looking
at biomass in goat meat or eland meat or
whatever the animal is that you using to treat
your invasive plants.”
Every community
in SA has a hack
group, coveringall
aspects, from “as a
sport” to youth
development
Social:
Socially desirable
activity;
hunting/prestige;
symbols
Technological:
App-driven
activity with
influencers; aided
by drones; virtual
recognition
Economic:
increased civil
society
investment=local
government able
to redirect budget
to strategic
planning
Environmental:
hack groups
participating in
wider activities:
biological control,
monitoring,RRED
Political:
Mainstream into
national holiday
activities; integrating
communities into
gov. mandate; link
to curricula
Values:
proactive
activities as
opposed to
reactive; Eyes
and ears
Groups become
more about
observation;
feeding into
municipal
platform/big data
Hacks speak to
diverse ways
of interacting
with nature
Integrated into
school curricula
Effective
knowledge
sharing
platforms for
monitoring,
education
Hack groups
more integrated
through the
metro; ableto
influence political
decision making
Monitoring feeds
into budget and
policy
Massive
reduction in
aliens in the
landscape
Civil society
recognizing
biomassvalue &
entering biomass
beneficiation
markets as a
result of
effectiveness
“Now it's trending. We change
values.”
”If those people or those
individuals who are quite
reactionary, become the
warriors of future-the
next generation water
warriors/biodiversity
warriors- if you improve
the status of those
people in society”
“Changing the values in our governments around
incentivizing the actions we want on the ground, and
where our government stepped back from
agricultural incentives and land use incentives, I'd
like to see them step in, I can see them stepping into
that space more.”
Fig. 3 Example of a Futures Wheel created by a group at the partici-
patory workshop. Each group was given three starting seeds, shown
in their “mature condition” (grey). The primary consequences of this
mature seed are presented in yellow, while the second order conse-
quences (in teal) expand on the impact/changes seen because of the
primary consequences. Relevant quotes from discussions are shown
in italics around the wheels
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2577Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
civil society. As such, societal investment in this issue
grows, resulting in large reductions in IAS. A strong
monitoring component exists, which builds on knowl-
edge-sharing platforms. This group identified many
key transition steps (Fig.4, Horizon 2, blue), some
of which focussed on practical policy and legislative
measures, including formalising and expanding Cli-
mate Change Adaptation Plans (CCAP) to secure fund-
ing, replicating useful civil society movements, and
developing common markets for different government
departments to buy cross-sectoral services. Other tran-
sition steps focussed on ways to engage civil society,
including enabling local champions, enabling artisan
trade careers, and having loud civil society voices.
There were also actions centred around research,
where a more seamless pathway between research and
society exists, and where research is appropriately
funded and politically supported. Undesirable current
conditions that hamper these changes (Fig.4, Horizon
1, orange) included issues with undiversified and unre-
liable funding, a lack of an enabling political environ-
ment, and a lack of integrated catchment management.
The reluctance of landowners to engage in manage-
ment was also an undesirable feature. The group iden-
tified several seeds (in green) which currently exist,
and which could help to arrive at the desired future,
including biomass products, and ecological infrastruc-
ture innovations.
Future visions ofgroups
A summary of each group’s future vision is available in
Table2, with further information about each starting seed,
including its mature form, available in TableS1. There were
several common factors in the visions developed. Firstly, in
terms of visions of governance and political support, there
was a desire across groups for a future with closely-knit
partnerships for IAS responsibility. Improving the relation-
ship of industry, civil society and academia with govern-
ment was seen as essential to address issues with legislation
enforcement, corruption, or governance vacuums, but also
for partnerships amongst these different sectors. Collec-
tive governance and shared accountability were seen as the
emergent outcomes of these relationship transformations.
There was also a strong desire for a future with closer links
Fig. 4 Example of a Three Horizons diagram generated by a group,
showing the first horizon of current conditions, including those that
they would like to see diminish (orange) and grow (green); the second
horizon (blue) indicating transitory changes or actions; and the articu-
lated future with several desired characteristics (purple) for the inva-
sive alien species (IAS) management sector. SAPIASouthern African
Plant Invaders Atlas,FPA Fire Protection Association, WUA Water
Users Association, CCAP Climate Change Adaptation Plans, NEMBA
National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004
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2578 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
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between people and nature, characterised by concepts like
stewardship, multi-functional landscapes, relationality, or
ecological flows. A further commonality was a vision for a
future where joblessness and a lack of realised benefits for
communities from IAS management are transformed into
a society with meaningful work and equitably distributed
benefit flows. Additionally, there was a common vision for
improved access to, and management of, data, where open-
access knowledge-sharing platforms are created to take
advantage of technological advancements, but also building
on the improved partnerships discussed above.
There were also rich differences between groups. For
example, Group A focussed on a future which embeds indus-
try and market-based instruments into IAS management, to
achieve social and ecological goals. In contrast, Group B
focussed on a completely new way for people and nature to
interact, beyond the market. Radical ideas, such as the need
for trauma-informed approaches, wealth taxes or compulsory
community service were suggested as a way to bridge the
conceptual divide between IAS management and systemic
global challenges such as inequality. However, both groups
had the base-line value that the future pathways should ulti-
mately result in improved livelihoods via more equitable
benefits to society.
Funding for IAS management was a priority across all
groups, expressed as this sector having adequate resources
to appropriately manage the scale of invasions. How to real-
ise this funding was, however, conceptualised differently in
the various groups. Using value-added product approaches,
green infrastructure, or partnerships between municipali-
ties and businesses were some ways to approach this issue,
but groups also saw the need to integrate ideas which go
beyond the direct IAS management sector, such as climate
adaptation and circular economies, into how IAS manage-
ment is funded. Another group conceptualised funding in a
broader manner, by appropriately recognising IAS impacts
and therefore tapping into much larger funding bases for
climate change, fire or water management.
Table 2 Description of future visions generated by four groups, indicating which seeds were used as their starting point. Italics indicates the for-
mal name of seed initiatives
Group Vision Starting seeds Relevant figures
A A future focussed strongly on markets and industry as a
means to arrive at improved connection between society
and the issue of IAS, using concepts such as green
infrastructure, common markets for services and the IAS
product sector. Financing for management was also a
key focus of the vision, as was a strong and responsive
regulatory system
Diverse configurations of hack groups
Goat Army Africa
Greater Cape Town Water Fund
Figures3, 4
B A future vision focussed on relationality between people
and nature (that is, acknowledging that each influences,
and is influenced by, the other, and that people and
nature are fundamentally intertwined), achieved via
circular economies and ecological flows. The current
political system would change, including how nature-
human landscapes are valued, resulting in a duty of care
to the environment and actors with transferable skills.
The result of this would be connected, altruistic socie-
ties, who take pride in working to improve environmen-
tal and human wellbeing outcomes
Blaauwberg Large-scale Sand Fynbos Restoration Project
Value-added products from invasive species (Hive Car-
bon)
Program “Skoon Veld”
FiguresS1, S4
C A future vision where IAS management is driven by stew-
ardship and close-knit networks, focussed on responsive
management and collective governance, and strong com-
munities of practice. Landscapes are multifunctional and
communities are involved with sustainable management
of IAS for job creation, with a grounding of shared
values
Mapping invasive species using open-access satellite
imagery
Land management planning via Honeybush incentives
Upper Breede Collaborative extension group (UBCEG)
FiguresS2, S5
D A future vision which views IASmanagement as part of
the wider socio-economic development of South Africa,
where job creation and poverty alleviation areseen as
fundamental to being able to appropriately manage
invasions. This would result in improved livelihoods for
all, supported by responsible investment by government,
industry, and civil society
Landcare catchment management finance plans
(CoGo)
(Collaborative Governance for Water Security Co-oper-
ative)
Low-cost solution to monitoring alien biofouling species
FiguresS3, S6
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2579Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
Domains ofchange andstakeholder actions
Eight “domains of change” were identified from the clus-
tering process undertaken in the follow-up mini-workshop
(Fig.5). “Appropriate and functional financing” was a
domain seen as fundamental to allowing many of the other
domains to happen, such as the domain to “stimulate the IAS
product economy”, and to make more “strategic investments
into research and technology” in this field. The need for an
ethos or values change in the government, the public and
even within the management sector itself was another fun-
damental area for action, primarily relating to the need for
much broader engagement on this issue, with multiple sec-
tors acknowledging greater responsibility due to increased
recognition about the severity of the IAS threat. Many of
these domains highlight the social–ecological nature of IAS,
such as the need to foster innovative partnerships, to advance
collective action and, importantly, to advance equity and
social inclusion via IAS management.
The key stakeholder groups identified as being able to
undertake actions to advance these domains of change were
(a) government, officials and policymakers; (b) private sec-
tor and industry; (c) non-governmental organisations and
civil society; (d) researchers, students and academics; (e)
funding partners; (f) practitioners, implementers and manag-
ers; and g) regional bodies and international partners. The
set of actions associated with each domain of change was
mapped onto these stakeholders (Fig.5; tool presented in
TableS2). A key message emerging from this exercise was
that many actions require coordinated input from multiple
groups. For example, the government may be the funder of
anaction, while a non-governmental organisation may be
responsible for implementation. Secondly, it was apparent
that appropriate rules of engagement are required for all
stakeholders to buy into, given the complexity of roles and
responsibilities. However, we found that only a few actions
could truly be assigned to all actors. These actions point to
deeper underlying changes necessary for this sector, such as
the need to shift mindsets (consciousness, attitudes, values)
to support a new generation of gamechangers, the facilitation
of civil society input and engagement, the need to grow and
retain career options in the IAS sector (both professional
and artisanal), enabling open-access data, an emphasis on
healthy and innovative partnerships, as well as a social jus-
tice focus. The domain to “foster innovative partnerships”
was the most difficult for participants to break into stake-
holder groups, illustrating the collaborative nature of this
domain.
Discussion
Utilising tools and methods from the field of futures studies
provides an opportunity to re-imagine complex and intrac-
table social–ecological issues, such as invasive alien species
management. This sector requires new ways of thinking and
doing to counteract prevalent pessimism and failures. Here,
we present an application of a participatory future visioning
process to the South African IAS context. We also piloted an
extension of the process to identify clusters of actions, and
then allocate specific actions within them to different stake-
holder groups. We found that using innovative, experimen-
tal, or bottom-up initiatives as a basis for visioning processes
enabled the identification of pathways to create more sus-
tainable futures. By using tools which encourage systemic
thinking, shared visions can be generated which recognise
the complexity of the challenges of IAS management and
facilitate meaningful ways of understanding the intercon-
nected actions needed to move towards these visions.
Domains ofchange
One of the fundamental areas for action in the South African
IAS management sector which emerged from the participa-
tory visioning process was the need for a change of ethos and
values, in terms of prioritising IAS for funding, research and
collective action by all society. This reprioritisation speaks
to the severe and increasing impacts of IAS worldwide, com-
bined with a lack of recognition of the risks (Pyšek etal.
2020). There were, however, different conceptualisations
of which values the future should be based on. One group
spoke about the importance of relationality, achieved via
circular ecosystems and ecologies. This suggests that what
is needed is a reframing of how society relates to IAS, and
more broadly to nature and the environment. A controver-
sial idea that was voiced was that IAS could be viewed as
a possible asset or pathway, which could be used to forge
a stronger connection between nature, people and restored
ecosystems, by expanding the IAS product economy. This
does not discount the significant negative impacts that IAS
may cause, but rather reframes the problem so that they can
be managed with a consideration of broader trade-offs and
appropriate levels of engagement.
These framings speak to the diverse ways in which peo-
ple value nature, including IAS, which has ramifications
for what type of human–nature relationships should be
prioritised and acted upon (Balvanera etal. 2022). The
recent IPBES Values Assessment conceptualised these dif-
ferent framings (IPBES 2022; Pascual etal. 2022), which
can be related to the visions of the different groups in
this study. Framings such as “living from nature”, where
nature is a resource which provides human prosperity, was
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2580 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
Appropriate and
functional financing
Shifting mindsets
and values
Foster Innovative
Partnerships
Advance collective
action
Strengthen
regulatory
institutions
Advance equity and
social inclusion
Strategic
investments in
research and
technology
Stimulate IAS
product economy
Funding source
diversification:
ecosystem-based
adaptation, disaster risk
management
Shift minds
(consciousness,
attitudes, values)
about IAS
management
Create a collaborative
culture amongst
institutions working on
invasives
Civil society
recognized & more
influential in policy
development & project
design
Prioritize areas,
species, & actions for
management: fight the
worst battles first
Social justice as a
central priority
Enable Open Access
data
Grow and retain
career options in IAS
sector: both
professional &
artisanal
Seamless work to
commission research
studies, collaborative
research programme
Creating safe spaces
to have conversations
about deep beliefs
and telling stories
about environment
Promote partnerships
and consensus
building e.g., by
theory of change
Building up local
governance structures
relevant to invasives
(CMAs, FPAs, WUAs)
Readjust adaptive
management to work
with legislation
Trauma counseling,
using nature based
safe spaces
Harnessing Tech
advancements e.g.,
phone apps and
citizen science
Mainstreaming
benefits of
clearing/monitoring:
marketing,
communication,
accessibility
Supporting CCAP by
mainstreaming them
into long-term economic
planning e.g., IDP and
NDP
Learn to live with
some invaders
Accountable for
collaboration:
requirement of
funding at proposal &
implementation
phases
Broaden political
support base,
especially for
application of law
Need more
enforcement
operations (NEMBA
legislated actions)
Enhance and shift
values in youth
Creating an enabling
environment for
innovation (data
platform access)
Change accounting
system: what project
deliverables matter
Implement incentives
and advocacy-based on
risks of IAS e.g., fire,
floods, loss of
ecosystem service
Rules of engagement-
decide how we work
together
Devise a reward
system e.g.,
collaborative
champion of the
month
Increase the number
of formal civil society
entities in IAS
management
Reviewing laws that
can be enforced &
supported
Real upskilling of
marginalized people
Reward or prize
system forinnovations
Upscale &
commercialise IAS
value-added industry
products: plants &
animals,
Support & rewards for
innovation (for both
government and private
sector)
Accepting people
where they are at
(resourcing, childcare,
hours of work)
Foster innovative
public private
partnerships
Develop user-friendly
cross-sectoral
procurement
processes to manage
IAS (fit for purpose)
Enhance prevention:
bio security,
eradication, Early
Detection Rapid
Response
Basic needs met
across society,
especially in IAS
management jobs
Update baseline data
regularly and make
publicly available
Replicating civil
society movements
(e.g. FPA, WUA)
Users Associations)
More funds earmarked
for invasion sector
Change definition of
success: skills that
are meaningful
Create job role to
connect departments
Loud civil society
voice that impacts on
regulatory system
Operationalize
performance
evaluation system
e.g., in municipalities
Socially responsible
investments e.g.,
pension fund, blended
investment
Mainstream AI and
cloud computing
Grow market for jobs
in product industry
Funding for marketing
(real communication
expertise)
Promote success
stories for awareness
and spread
Harness marketing
students or projects to
improve messaging
Area-based global
change adaption
agencies
Enforce accountability
for invasions
Foster supportive
communities e.g.
families, faith based
orgs, NGOs
Integrated
funding/knowledge
sharing to understand
links to global drivers
e.g., climate, pollution
Creating more jobs
by designing
“connector” positions
Tapping into corporate
social/environmental
responsibility or pro
bono work by firms
New generation of
ethically minded &
spiritual game
changers
Facilitate and support
conservancies and
stewardships
(mainstreaming co-
management)
Create institutional
model where local
community becomes
custodian
Benchmark
international best
practices
Wealth tax integrated
into society and used
for environmental and
social goals
Improve the
packaging of
information (target
audience, language,
platforms, format)
Improve job stability
and transferable
skills
Innovative public private
partnerships for funding
e.g. business
chambers, water funds
Encouraging the new
generation of
environmental
warriors to shift
deeply held beliefs,
myths, dogmas
Partnerships growing
& maintained by trust
and relationship-
building across
sectors
Documenting existing
seeds (asset-based
community mapping)
Develop common
market for different
gov. departments to
buy same services-
cross-sectoral
Transition from social
grants (long term)
Core funding for
Invasion science and
scientific centres
Experimenting with
socially engaged
circular
economies/ecologies
Socially responsible
investments e.g.
pension fund, blended
investment
Compulsory
community service -
getting everyone
involved in
management
Implement &
participate in diverse
community service
work (levels of work,
internships)
Setting aside seed
funding to support
innovation and
technological
advances in invasion
Scale up all biocontrol
programs and work
them into citizen
science projects
Providing basic
training on social
issues (e.g., trauma,
economy, people
skills) in schools,
workplaces
Ensure that IAS
management
discourse leads to
economic
development &
employment
Dignifying work in IAS
management
More local champions
enabled
More local champions
enabled
Further develop
market for products
All Government, officials,
policy makers
Private
sector/industry
Non-governmental
Organisations, civil society
Researchers,
students, academics
Funding
partners
Practitioners,
implementers, managers
Regional bodies,
international partners
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
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2581Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
seen in the product economy/green infrastructure vision
(Group A); “living with nature” was seen in the vision
which emphasised stewardship approaches (Group C);
while “living in nature”, which emphasises that there is
no separation between people and nature, was seen in the
vision which emphasised relationality, nature as a healing
resource and circular ecosystems (Group B). Acknowl-
edging that these diverse framings have relevance for IAS
management is vital, as dominant actors may either seek
to impose their own preferred valuation and in this way,
simplify and exclude other values (Balvanera etal. 2022;
Pascual etal. 2022). Using participatory processes builds a
collective understanding and improves equity in decision-
making, and therefore encourages a more diverse array
of actors to become socially legitimate (Woodford etal.
2016; Balvanera etal. 2022). This diversity of values and
assumptions requires that participants in the visioning
process engage not only intellectually with the problem,
but emotionally, which results in rich discussions (Pereira
etal. 2018), and reflects the fact that negotiation is central
to managing transitions (Quist etal. 2011). A critical mass
of stakeholders with a shared vision is, however, neces-
sary for action, indicating that more of these visioning
processes are needed for the IAS management sector in
South Africa to arrive at a cohesive shared vision. As a
participant said during feedback: “To really win the battle
against alien species, we would need to include a broader
portion of society. This sort of workshop is a first step,
but change will take place when there is a core mass of
people on board.”
Diverse framings link strongly to the need for more col-
lective action on IAS across multiple scales. Invasions occur
in increasingly complex social landscapes, where multiple
land managers have responsibility and their actions (or inac-
tion) affect one another (du Plessis etal. 2022). Coordinat-
ing control efforts in this type of “management mosaic” has
been identified as a key strategy to enhance landscape-level
management of IAS, that can be aided by coordination
from both government and community-level organisations
(Epanchin-Niell etal. 2010). Collective action arising only
from bottom-up approaches, although addressing a disil-
lusionment with top-down command and control, can be
hampered by large numbers of stakeholders and heterogene-
ity of incentives (Lubell etal. 2002). Therefore, approaches
which can unite governmental expertise and resources with
local knowledge and enthusiasm can be powerful (Higgins
etal. 2007; Epanchin-Niell etal. 2010). Collective action
for improved governance can thrive when local ownership,
and social and financial capacity are available, but also when
there is a shared normative belief amongst stakeholders that
IAS require control and that others in the group are mak-
ing investments in this control (Graham etal. 2019). Shared
beliefs can be facilitated by emphasising actions that reflect
local knowledge and understanding, as well as those that
are based on collective norms (Winter 2010; Malpica-Cruz
etal. 2016).
Public participation in IAS management is a key factor
to both the “shifting mindsets and values” and the “advanc-
ing collective action” domains of change. Two key concepts
may act as important ways to guide strategies for public
participation, namely the leverage points perspective on
transformative change and behavioural science principles.
Firstly, leverage points are places in a complex system where
a small shift may lead to large and fundamental changes
to the system (Meadows 1999). These leverage points may
be deep, indicating actions that address the ultimate causes
of the problem and create enabling conditions for greater
action e.g. by reconnecting people and nature, or shallow,
indicating actions that are easier but may bring about limited
change to the system (Abson etal. 2017). While both may
contribute to addressing a problem, deep leverage points for
conservation actions including awareness-raising strategies,
changing behaviour by appealing to non-monetary values
and effective and targeted education and training (Arponen
and Salomaa 2023). Some IAS examples could include using
existing environmental or recreational interests to create
invasive species action (e.g. targeting recreational fishers
to manage invasive fish by tapping into their motivation to
spend time outdoors; Atchison etal. 2017) or using carefully
designed citizen science initiatives to empower people to
feel engaged with their local environments (Cardoso etal.
2017). Communication on climate risks such as fire, drought
and floods may also be relevant for IAS engagement. Sec-
ondly, behavioural science principles may offer some ways
to stimulate behaviour change, e.g. via “nudges”. Such prin-
ciples include making the desired behaviour easy and con-
venient to do, using social norms and social proof that others
are also undertaking the behaviour, providing feedback and
visual cues on the behaviour, appealing to intrinsic motiva-
tions which appeal to people’s values and personal goals,
and making the consequences of their choices or behaviour
salient by highlighting their immediate impact (Lehner etal.
2016; Velez and Moros 2021). These principles have been
applied in a limited way to IAS management (e.g. Shannon
etal. 2020), but much more research is needed. Stimulating
Fig. 5 Domains of change (bold headings), each with a set of associ-
ated actions, for the South African invasive alien species (IAS) man-
agement sector in the future. Some actions may fit into more than
one domain. Stakeholders who may be able to influence an action
are indicated as coloured dots below each action (colour key at bot-
tom of the figure). CMA Community Management Association, FPA
Fire Protection Association, WUA Water Users Association, CCAP
Climate Change Adaptation Plans, IDP Integrated Development
Planning, NDP National Development Plan, NEMBA National Envi-
ronmental Management: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004, AI Artificial
Intelligence, NGO Non-governmental Organisation
◂
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2582 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
public participation in IAS management will be key to creat-
ing the transformative change envisioned in the Seeds work-
shop, and combining behavioural science with a prioritisa-
tion of deep leverage points may help to achieve this.
A related domain of change was the need for more coop-
erative, innovative, and inclusive partnerships. Self-serving,
inefficient, and siloed approaches are still common, espe-
cially in government structures (van Wilgen and Wannen-
burgh 2016). These are characterised by top-down manage-
ment, overregulated but under-policed legislation, and the
domination of the sector by Working for Water, which can
stifle innovations, such as using triage and/or integrated
catchment management approaches (van Wilgen etal. 2022).
This fragmented and bureaucratic landscape leads to sig-
nificant frustration in the IAS sector, and therefore to high
staff turnover. In the visioning process used here, this situ-
ation would transition into close-knit networks who work
co-creatively with communities to create multifunctional
landscapes, characterised by stewardship approaches. This
echoes a wider call to encourage governance and partner-
ship structures which emphasise the holistic, multi-scaler
and cross-boundary collective action needed for manage-
ment (Graham etal. 2019).
The issue of inconsistent or undiversified funding was a
dominant area for change identified by all groups. An overall
diversification of funding in the private sector, academia
and government was seen as paramount to allow appropriate
resources to flow towards IAS management. State funding,
often inefficient and slow to materialise, needs to be com-
plemented by innovative funding mechanisms (van Wilgen
etal. 2022). Unlocking private sector investment in concepts
like ecological infrastructure or climate change adaptation,
could be a key method of incentivising IAS management.
However, for these investments to be attractive to the private
sector, a process of de-risking is necessary, as many of the
relevant markets (e.g. carbon credits) are immature (Angel-
stam etal. 2017).
Stimulating the IAS product economy in the private sec-
tor was seen as one way to generate funding and action to
achieve IAS management goals. Overcoming substantial
logistical, technological and social barriers to commerciali-
sation would, however, require defining the markets more
clearly and delivering appropriate returns (Angelstam etal.
2017). This may initially rely on public sector funding to
support bottom-up innovations that currently lack private
investment (Angelstam etal. 2017). There are, however,
many issues with creating an IAS product sector, primarily
the creation of dependencies on specific IAS and thus unin-
tended incentives for their continued presence, and the mani-
fold challenges of creating traceable and certifiable value-
chains. Success stories (such as the seeds approach used
here) can, however, provide positive examples from which
to potentially catalyse wider financing initiatives. They also
provide an opportunity to develop rigorous indicators for
social, ecological and financial goals. By their very nature,
start-ups and small businesses are quick to expose failures,
especially financial ones, but this also provides for signifi-
cant flexibility and rapid innovation, especially in reducing
costs (Mills etal. 2015). Creating a dynamic platform for
sharing such insights would be key towards maximising the
return on such investments.
All groups also identified a strong need to advance equity
and social inclusion, which is particularly pertinent to the
context of South Africa, where the need for poverty allevia-
tion and job creation are paramount. The IAS management
sector is not exempt from these issues. The current approach
of relying on the Working for Water model for job crea-
tion has been criticised for providing skills that are not well
aligned with gaining employment in the formal economy,
and for focussing on maximising short-term employment,
rather than long-term poverty alleviation (McConnachie
etal. 2013). A more diverse approach to skills training and
employment is needed to allow IAS management to truly
impact social welfare goals. To achieve this, seeds which
actively contribute to advancing different dimensions of
equity should be identified and investigated further.
Another key social justice factor is that, apart from job
creation as a result of IAS management programmes, many
poor communities depend on IAS for their wellbeing e.g.
via their sale, or to provide products such as food, fuel or
construction materials for their households (Shackleton etal.
2019c). Sustainable strategies for the management of IAS
must therefore account explicitly for these dependencies.
However, more research is needed to adequately under-
stand these relationships and vulnerabilities. Radical ideas
suggested at the workshop such as wealth taxes to redirect
financing and achieve social goals, or compulsory commu-
nity service to reconnect people and nature strongly link to
these themes of redistribution, decentralised governance and
poverty alleviation.
Stakeholder actions
The wide array of stakeholders involved in IAS manage-
ment, and their shared responsibility for action, under-
scores some of the challenges with making future trans-
formative visions a reality. Different stakeholders may
each play key roles in implementing a single action, or in
actions that need to be linked together to create impact.
It is in these complex dynamics that many of the com-
mon issues with taking visioning into the practical sphere
emerge, such as overcoming lack of trust and power
dynamics, or differing institutional mandates (Falardeau
etal. 2019; Rutting etal. 2022). There is, however, an
emerging field of research which explores these issues
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2583Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
specifically for the IAS management sector, which iden-
tifies several psychological, environmental, social and
institutional factors which may influence stakeholder
relations, and, therefore, how management takes place
(Shackleton etal. 2019b). A recent framework by Carter
etal. (2021) summarises some of these important vari-
ables, including personal factors (such as values, prior
knowledge of the problem and worldviews), which are
foundational to individual factors governing perceptions,
social norms and emotions (e.g. interpersonal trust levels,
perceived fairness, perceived efficacy, risk and uncer-
tainty of management actions). Institutional factors (such
as institutional trust and procedural fairness) and gov-
ernance factors (such as mandates and values that drive
engagement and framings of IAS) will also influence the
acceptability of any interventions to different stakehold-
ers, including the public (Carter etal. 2021). Such frame-
works, along with research into conflict-generating IAS
(Zengeya etal. 2017), allow stakeholders to grapple with
complexity, and attempt to balance differing values and
interests. Multiple streams of information are necessary
for the acceptability and success of any interventions,
built on foundations of trust, openness and transparency
(Carter etal. 2021). Processes like futuring can directly
contribute towards building these foundations, by reveal-
ing commonalities and differences in both individual,
institutional and governance factors and creating a con-
text to build a shared vision which accounts for these
complexities.
Futures studies asafrontier foraction
andresearch onIAS
Futures methods, such as visioning, can act as an impetus
for action on IAS issues. However, visioning is one of
many methods which can be used, depending on the goals
of the process. Futures methods which improve the under-
standing of IAS as a social–ecological system (Hichert
etal. 2021a), and encourage the incorporation of concepts
such as complexity, tipping points and emergence (Sardar
and Sweeney 2016) are particularly important. Further
contributions of futures studies to IAS management could
also include, for example, large-scale public participatory
scenario building, philosophical work on how IAS valu-
ation may change in a less biodiverse future or incorpo-
rating diverse knowledge bases into IAS management. It
would be valuable to see how people not actively involved
in IAS management would envision the future of this prob-
lem, so as to explore solutions to better engage the public
in management. A potential challenge with the uptake of
such tools in the IAS sector is that it is often dominated
by natural scientists, with limited social science engage-
ment (Shackleton etal. 2019a). This emphasises the need
to understand people’s perceptions of invasions and their
responses to them, and diversify academic engagement
on this issue.
The extension of the SOGA process, which explored
the role of different stakeholders in implementing actions
generated during the visioning process, is an additional
frontier for further research. This process was successful
in coalescing the actions of the group’s differing visions,
without losing many of the differences in how the future
was viewed. However, further research on how best to use
the stakeholder matrix to support the scaling of promising
seed initiatives is needed.
Limitations
The primary limitation of the SOGA approach is that the
outcomes are linked to the seeds used to initiate the process.
If the seeds are not diverse and not sufficiently different from
prevailing paradigms, there is a risk that the result will rein-
force current thinking rather than stimulating a re-imagining
of the issue (Pereira etal. 2018). Careful pre-selection of
seeds to maximise their diversity using framings such as
STEEP-V helps to counteract this. Convergence of future
visions is also a possibility, as the Manoa method is designed
to maximise the difference from present conditions, rather
than the widest range of possible or divergent futures (Curry
and Hodgson 2008). Introducing other tools, such as the
2 × 2 double uncertainty matrix (see Table1) may help to
create greater divergence, although convergence is still pos-
sible if the participants share a normative hope for the future
(Falardeau etal. 2019). Incorporating new innovations in
the SOGA approach would also be valuable in future work,
such as using tools to explicitly define the power shifts nec-
essary to facilitate transformations as illustrated by Rutting
etal. (2022), or incorporating art and science-fiction story-
telling to encourage creativity in the process (Lazurko and
Keys 2022). These limitations speak to some of the general
criticisms of visioning—that it is dependent on who is in
the room and what prompts are used to create the visions
(Wiek and Iwaniec 2014). While these issues are impor-
tant to acknowledge, this is a process where the outcomes,
although valuable, are not the only goal.
Conclusion
Creating shared visions of the future of IAS management is
challenging, given the increased pace and escalating severity
of invasions, the complexity of the issues stemming from
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2584 Sustainability Science (2023) 18:2567–2587
1 3
intersecting drivers of global change, and a lack of social sci-
ence engagement on this issue. However, this kind of work is
urgently needed to support action for transformative change
to achieve improved environmental sustainability and soci-
etal wellbeing. Creating spaces for learning from existing
innovations in the field, and for engaging constructively with
the future is, therefore, an important priority. In addition,
encouraging futures literacy and spurring more optimistic
visions which speak to normative goals can be valuable in
the effort to transform sustainability issues. We hope that
the example of the application of the tools presented in this
paper applied to the complex realities of IAS management in
a resource-constrained developing country, where multiple
innovative ways of doing and thinking nevertheless exist,
serves to stimulate further initiatives in this direction.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplemen-
tary material available at https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s11625- 023- 01406-0.
Acknowledgements We would like to thank all participants who
attended the “Seeds of Success” workshop for their contributions.
Author contributions Conceptualisation: JLvV, RB, DMR; methodol-
ogy: JLvV, RB, DMR, TH; analysis: all authors; writing—original draft
preparation: JLvV, writing—review and editing: all authors; funding
acquisitions: RB, DMR.
Funding Open access funding provided by Stellenbosch University.
JLvV and RB received support from the South African Research Chairs
Initiative (SARChI) of the Department of Science and Technology
and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant 98766),
which also funded the workshop. JLvV, DMR, LJP and KJE acknowl-
edge support from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion
Biology. DMR received support from Mobility 2020 project no. CZ.
02.2.69/0.0/0.0/18_053/0017850 (Ministry of Education, Youth and
Sports of the Czech Republic) and long-term research development
project RVO 67985939 (Czech Academy of Sciences).
Data availability All material and data that support the findings of this
study are available from the corresponding author, [JvV], upon request.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors have no competing interests to declare
that are relevant to the content of this article.
Ethical approval This research received ethical clearance for its activi-
ties via Stellenbosch University (REC: Social, Behavioural and Educa-
tion Research (SBER)-Ref. 3880). Informed consent was received from
all workshop participants.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
bution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adapta-
tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes
were made. The images or other third party material in this article are
included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in
the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will
need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a
copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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