Imagination Activism with policy makers: The River Roding Interspecies Council

Policy-makers, community members and local stakeholders came together to speak on behalf of species of the River Roding in an innovative decision making process

Moral Imaginations was commissioned by Policy Lab UK and DEFRA to host an Interspecies Council with policy makers, government, local organisations and residents of the River Roding. This is the first time an Interspecies Council (or Council of All Beings) has been hosted with the UK government and it was an exciting moment for everybody involved! The aim was to explore more-than-human decision-making in policy making, and whether an Interspecies Council could feasibly play a role in future governance of rivers and water.

The Interspecies Council is a participatory, semi-improvisational roleplay guided by facts and issues, and brought alive by intuition, imagination and sensing. It’s part of a lineage of work of Joanna Macy, developed with her support and permission.

The day was filled with visions of multispecies futures. We deeply explored the challenges, struggles and plight of the River Roding and her inhabitants, to building a 2050 vision of a flourishing Roding where all species thrive. People inhabited and spoke on behalf of the following species for the day: Tufted Duck, Reeds, Soil, Lichen, Swan, Bee, Diatom, Reed Warbler, River and many more — hosted and facilitated by the Kingfisher, Butterfly and Mycelium, summoned by the European Eel and Grass Snake. Key themes we discussed were: human chauvinism, interspecies solidarity, human control of the environment, destruction of the river banks, segregation and division of species, colonisation of the land with human settlements, a lack of understanding of the non-human lens.

Outputs from the Interspecies Council will be displayed in an exhibition in June 2023 alongside other outputs of the wider Post-2043 Water Project which the Interspecies Council is one part of. We will also be publishing a more detailed article about the process, the learning and the impact of the project, and a two video outputs which will give people an immersive taste of the methodology.