Reimagining Nature-Centric Governance in Oppdal, Norway
In a village in Norway, humans representing diverse flora and fauna convene to rethink governance with a focus on nature.
“My ask of humans is quite large,”says the northern bat to a gathering of reindeer, wolf lichen, bog, and other beings.
“It’s a shift of consciousness, and an understanding that … we are a relation.”
The scene resembles a science fiction narrative imagining a more-than-human uprising, but it is in fact a recent “interspecies council” held in Oppdal, Norway, where non-human entities, represented by humans, met to discuss the future of the region.
In the 1980s, environmentalists John Seed and Joanna Macy developed the Council of All Beings, a practice where humans embody and represent other species in ceremonial councils.
The scientist and moral imagination activist Phoebe Tickell, a mentee of Macy’s, envisioned integrating this practice into governance structures. This led Tickell to develop the interspecies council, which she describes as a
“decision-making methodology that expands who has voice and representation in governance beyond humans alone”.
Interspecies councils focus on specific issues. Facilitators and ecologists identify multispecies stakeholders, then assign and brief human representatives, chosen either randomly or based on expertise. The councils produce outcomes such as decisions or manifestos, concluding with an impact evaluation. The broader term “multispecies assembly” is sometimes used to include artistic variations.
This practice is part of a growing international movement advocating for nature rights and governance authority. In the UK, since 2023, 13 councils have recognized river rights. A nature’s rights bill is gaining support. A coalition of artists, ecologists, lawyers, scientists, urbanists, fishers, and policymakers is active around the North Sea. Organizations increasingly apply nature-centric governance methods, including nature charters and appointing nature representatives to boards.
Interspecies councils are also emerging in policy contexts. They have been used to rethink stewardship of London’s River Roding and to generate multispecies responses to governmental consultations on land use. Now, the practice has expanded internationally.
Oppdal: A Mountain Village at a Crossroads
Oppdal is a mountain village in central Norway’s Drivdalen valley, situated between the Dovrefjell and Trollheimen mountain ranges. Beyond the farmland in the valley floor, wilderness dominates.
“People live here with their shoulders lower,”says Elisabeth Hals, Oppdal’s mayor.
During winter, Oppdal’s population swells from 5,000 to over 30,000. Many visitors stay in private cabins, or hytter, which hold cultural significance in Norway as symbols of nature connection and have increased in number, especially since the Covid pandemic. This spring, the municipality is expected to approve plans for apartments to accommodate an additional 1,000 tourists by 2035. This is part of a strategic repositioning of Oppdal as a year-round destination to counteract the effects of warming winters.
Against the backdrop of global environmental challenges, Oppdal is experiencing a transitional period marked by ongoing debate on balancing economic development with ecological preservation. Margrete Vognild Blokhus, who facilitates dialogue among stakeholders, notes that discussions are characterized by a shared sense of stewardship rather than conflict. Nonetheless, tensions remain over land allocation among farming, tourism, and conservation interests.
Initiating the Interspecies Council in Oppdal
Architect Katerine Chada is part of Common Ground, a multidisciplinary research project exploring integrated land management in Oppdal. After attending a talk by Phoebe Tickell at the University of Cambridge in 2025, Chada proposed organizing an interspecies council in Oppdal.
Her colleagues were initially skeptical.
“Would people engage? ‘Are we going to go on this weird trip?’”recalls Patricia Schneider-Marin, a fellow architect. However, they supported the idea of giving nature a voice and were curious whether a council could help resolve conflicts and promote ecological decision-making. They agreed to proceed.
On the morning of the council, 38 representatives gathered at the Bjerkeløkkja conference centre, all local residents new to the process. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed views of conifer forests and snow-dusted foothills. Chada represented a spider, Schneider-Marin a Norwegian spruce, and Vognild Blokhus a purple saxifrage flower. The mayor arrived later, embodying a cloudberry.
The day began with a briefing followed by icebreakers. When asked whose great-grandparents lived in Oppdal, about half the participants stood. An invitation to embody their beings elicited sounds and movements such as squawks, wing flaps, and lumbering strides.
Voices of the Beings
The council focused on discussions about the needs, challenges, and ideas of the represented beings. Ritualistic elements, such as bowing during introductions, added a ceremonial dimension.
A rockfoil flower expressed a wish for humans to slow down and listen
“to where nature can tolerate more human activity and where it needs space”.
A birch tree voiced concern:
“I’m worried there’s too much of me. I thrive in open spaces, but I can take over.”
The River Driva lamented,
“I’ve just been seen as a resource, and not even acknowledged for how much I’ve given this landscape. I hate when humans make me fit in and be smaller than I am.”
A fox exclaimed with approval,
“I like him!”pointing at a wader bird.
Purpose and Impact of Interspecies Councils
Interspecies councils are not primarily designed to collect data.
“I work a lot with numbers,”says Schneider-Marin.
“We know the numbers.”
Instead, the goal is to foster interspecies empathy and to help dissolve the perceived divide between humans and nature.
“To take care of nature, we have to know it and feel it and think like it,”explains Vognild Blokhus.
Thinking and feeling differently does not imply pretending to fully understand other species’ minds. Schneider-Marin describes representing a tree, which lacks sight, smell, hearing, or taste, as
“a bit of a brain-twister,”but considers this a healthy challenge.
For Tickell, imperfect representation is preferable to exclusion.
“Is it sillier to ask someone to imaginatively inhabit the perspective of a different species for an hour, or to continue running governance systems that have driven a 70% collapse in wildlife populations in 50 years?”
Assuming non-human roles can also transform human interactions. The council fostered an unusually
“fantastic atmosphere of listening”,according to Chada.
Schneider-Marin observed that this atmosphere helped participants hear concerns without taking offense, as they could think,
“OK, wait, I’m a species.”
The hope is that these positive experiences will lead to lasting empathy gains. An evaluation is underway to track Oppdal participants’ connectedness to nature and openness to non-human perspectives from before the council to six months afterward.
Outcomes and Future Prospects
Oppdal’s beings drafted principles for human governance, which will be published as a manifesto. Human discussions concluding the council generated governance ideas, including establishing a six-monthly interspecies council and forming a höringsgruppe, or hearing group, to listen to Oppdal’s non-human entities. Participants plan to meet in June to discuss implementation.
The central challenge is establishing what Tickell terms
“institutional trace”: meaningful decision-making power grounded in robust methodologies, accountable protocols and longitudinal research.She envisions a future where interspecies councils become as routine as environmental impact assessments. However, she warns that interspecies councils will have failed if they
“become sophisticated greenwashing or window-dressing”.
The future of interspecies councils will unfold in Oppdal and beyond. For Oppdal’s participants, initial skepticism has evolved into a shared sense that they represent, as Vognild Blokhus states, one of the
“little seeds that we have to plant to make sure that in the end, maybe, we have a change”.
