Identifying pathways towards positive nature futures for lakes: report from the second PLURALAKES stakeholder workshop, English Lake District, UK, 12/02/2026

•This report describes the activities and discussions which were held at the second PLURALAKES workshop on pathway development in the English Lake District on February
12th, 2026, at Windermere Jetty Museum. The PLURALAKES project is an EU Water4All funded international consortia which aims to explore the possibilities for positive lake futures through co-created visions and pathways in three lake catchment areas in Europe, using the Nature Futures Framework as a guiding principle. The first English Lake District workshop, held in May 2025, focused on co-developing visions for positive lake futures (detailed by
Moorhouse et al., 2025). This second workshop was designed to build pathways towards these visions, together with local actors. The activities described in this workshop were designed and facilitated by the PLURALAKES team based in the UK, Netherlands and Stockholm.
•This workshop consisted of six activity sessions which were designed to 1) explore the three visions created in the first workshop, using creative writing narratives and ensure participants were still aligned with these visions , 2) prioritise the ecosystem services within these future
visions, 3) identify points of intervention to disrupt negative trajectories of change, 4) identify
“seeds” of change and the pathways to scale these up, 5) identify barriers which are preventing
positive lake futures and how these can be overcome and finally 6) develop narratives on the
pathways to positive futures.
•This report describes and evaluates the output from each of the activities that were produced by the three vision groups. Throughout the workshop, shared perspectives and points of tension emerged. Across the groups there was a recognition that for lake ecosystems to deliver multiple benefits and services, their ability to function, remain resilient and support biodiversity was paramount, followed by a need for societal change towards increased cultural
values, specifically improved connection and stewardship towards nature. There was also a
shared sense that addressing and improving wastewater management and land-use was necessary. In addition, all groups identified that the behaviours and actions of visitors were among the greatest sources of pressure on the lakes, and that broader changes to society’s value for nature, as well as on the culture of tourism needs to change to reduce this impact. Key areas of tension which emerged included exclusion, with different ideas about where,
when and who should be excluded to increase the opportunity for nature to thrive. Many participants were not able or comfortable making decisions around exclusion, though the
Nature for Nature group were clearer about complete human exclusion as necessary to protect natural habitats. There were also differences within the groups on how and when enforcement should be used, with the Nature as Culture group seeing it as a necessity to drive behavioural
change, whereas the other two groups wanted to see positive reinforcement and evidence from restoration being used to influence organisations and individuals. Finally, groups found difficulty in the prioritisation of ecosystem services, as well as developing the temporal
pathways to scale-up “seeds” and scale-down barriers. This may have come from either a discomfort on making decisions that may exclude certain sectors or members of society, the
unpredictability of global politics making future visioning difficult and/or reducing participant’s sense of agency or control in making future-based decisions, or the sense that all actions are urgent. The latter point is connected with the idea that we already have the knowledge we need to make steps towards positive nature futures, we just need to enact them. It was likely a combination of all these points.

•Nearly all participants from the first workshop returned to this second workshop and were joined by 12 additional local representatives from catchment and environmental management
to give a total of 18 attendees (not accounting for those who registered and could not attend last minute (21 attendees in total)). Much like the first workshop, there was missing representation from local residents and businesses, agriculture and visitors which was
perceived to impact the discussions which took place. Participant workshop feedback indicated several barriers to participation including the length of the workshop, and academic terminology, but overall, participants have found value in attendance with new tools to approach their work. Many participants enjoyed the opportunity to engage creatively via the narratives and characters in the storytelling activities.
•The next steps for the PLURALAKES team are to identify and translate the key interventions, seeds and barriers identified in this workshop into modellable pathways and scenarios of change. Different numerical models are being used to test future scenarios at different scales
and of different aspects of the socio-ecological Lake District system. Further workshops will be delivered in the Frisian Lake District in the Netherlands and the Koitajoki-Koitere river basin in Finland, designed using the learnings and reflections from this workshop.