manual for social impact assessment of land-based ... - Forest Trends

Step 5: Creating the narratives
In the next stage, the participants use the starting points (Step 4) to create coherent and plausible
narratives or stories. Participants can be divided into several groups of 4-6 people with a facilitator for
each group. Each group receives a different set of starting points. Various questions can be asked to get
the group started:
• What happens if … insert scenario starting point (e.g., the price of Brazil nuts falls and transport
to the community gets worse)? Then what?
• What happens next?
• What will be the consequence of that?
• How will people react if that happens?
• What will they do next?
• Who will push for what kind of change?
These questions can be continued to deepen the story. It can be useful to use time lines to help build
the scenarios – people can be asked to think about what happens at each point in time. This can help
them write a story. Each group should develop at least two scenarios - this will stimulate their thinking
about different outcomes or impacts.
The facilitator should also point out any inconsistencies and ask the participants to reconcile them. It is
important that the story includes the entire cast of characters as well as other identified driving forces. If
the group loses focus, the facilitator needs to bring the discussion back on track. A good way of breaking
a roadblock is to get the breakout groups to come up with outlines for a set of three to four stories in 45
minutes or less. This process can be repeated a few times, with full group discussions in between, to
deepen the stories.
Once the group has reached the logical end of a story, someone from the group should read it to the
rest of the group which should review and correct it. Finally it is essential to have a note taker (not the
facilitator) recording the discussions as the scenarios are developed.
Main Sources and Further Guidance
Evans, K., Velarde, S.J., Prieto, R.P., Rao, S.N., Sertzen, S., Davila, K., Cronkleton, P. and de Jong, W. 2006.
Field guide to the future: four ways for communities to think ahead. CIFOR, ASB, ICRAF, Nairobi.
http://www.asb.cgiar.org/PDFwebdocs/Evans-et-al-2006-Field-guide-to-the-future.pdf
Wollenberg, E., Edmunds, D., Buck, L. 2000. Anticipating change: scenarios as a tool for adaptive forest
management: a guide. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia.
http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/acm/methods/fs.html
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