For centuries, institutions have operated on the assumption that nature is a backdrop to human progress: an extractable resource rather than a co-governor of shared futures.
This separation has fueled systemic insecurity through ecological collapse and resource conflicts. However, a new paradigm is emerging. One that recognizes ecosystems as active participants in governance, rather than passive commodities or conduits for human aspirations. Multi-species justice, ecological personhood, and biocentric governance are reshaping institutional frameworks to ensure the long-term resilience of both human and non-human communities.
The Challenge
The rapid loss of biodiversity, degradation of ecosystems, and depletion of resources reflect the consequences of a governance model that places short-term human priorities above planetary stability – Only 3% of Earth’s ecosystems remain fully intact.
Since 1970, there has been a 73% decline in the average size of wildlife populations, and within decades one million species are at risk of extinction. This is not just an environmental crisis—it disrupts food chains, weakens disease resistance, and threatens agricultural stability.
For example, the loss of pollinators is already reducing global crop yields, pushing up food prices and worsening hunger. Similarly, coastal overfishing has placed 35% of global fish stocks in a state of overexploitation, threatening food security for millions. These stark and unavoidable indicators of human-centric growth models which have adverse effects on environment and drive a systemic failure to safeguard the very foundations of life.
Understanding of the security implications of climate and biodiversity is growing, however governments need to be careful when starting to integrate policy across significantly different domains like defence and nature. Over simplification and lack of deliberate design to overcome the power imbalances between policy domains, creates risks of misprioritisation.
Pathways for Institutional Innovation
To bridge the human-nature divide, governance shouuld embrace biocentric, reciprocal, and multi-species approaches.
We already see some ways this can be put into action. For example, the ICARUS leverages real-time ecological data from animal-borne sensors to integrate non-human intelligence on species movements, habitat changes, and environmental stressors into policy.
Governance is also evolving to embed ecological actors into public decision-making.
- In Poznań, Poland, mussels are used as living bioindicators, triggering automatic water quality measures when pollution thresholds are exceeded, turning species health into an infrastructural concern.
- Animals in the Room takes this approach to other spaces by advocating for the inclusion of non-human perspectives in policy-making, recognizing animals as stakeholders in shared ecosystems.
- Similar is Public Planet Partnerships, an organization that promotes a framework developed to facilitate mutually beneficial partnerships and collaborations between humans and the rest of the natural world. Through interdisciplinary collaboration and legal innovation, they redefine governance as a multi-species endeavor, ensuring that decisions reflect the interdependence of human and non-human communities.
Emerging legal tools worldwide are granting rivers, forests, and wetlands legal standing, redefining ecosystems as rights-bearing entities rather than resources to be managed.
The Climate Governance Commission is reimagining global institutions to address the climate crisis, advocating for governance frameworks that treat planetary stability as a fundamental political priority. By integrating scientific, legal, and policy expertise, it seeks to embed long-term ecological responsibility into international decision-making, ensuring climate resilience is structurally reinforced rather than politically contingent
The future of governance lies in institutions that recognize interdependence.
Rather than seeing human and non-human needs and intelligence as separate, the future lies in recognising their interdependence.
At IID, we discuss how to integrate ecological intelligence into decision-making and design policies that sustain life across both generations and species. A world that governs with nature rather than over it, is not only possible—it is necessary for our collective survival.
