Proposal for Fern
Working across difference, power and context—then turning insight into better meetings, partnerships and decisions.
Why this matters at Fern
Fern is co-managed and consensus-led, while working across movements, forest communities, civil-society partners and European institutions.
How do we open access without reproducing the conditions that restrict whose knowledge, pace or voice counts?
The working method
Familiar cultural models become a starting point—not the final explanation.
What changes
Each discussion ends with a decision, redesign or practical output.
“You have six minutes. Identify two explanations and choose one response.”
The four-hour programme
Encounter → interpret → complicate → choose → redesign.
00:00–00:55 · Opening sequence
“If I disagree with the direction of a meeting, I would normally say so during the meeting.”
Two days later, a partner emails significant concerns about the proposed strategy.
00:55–02:20 · Case 1
A facilitator needs a rapid decision. Some colleagues challenge openly, one speaks little, and detailed concerns arrive only after the meeting.
What conditions allow consensus to genuinely include different ways of participating?
02:20–02:40 · Practice
Each group receives one recognisable Fern-style object and returns one concrete alternative.
02:40–03:25 · Case 2
Fern proposes a rapid EUDR advocacy response. An Indonesian partner later raises serious concerns as the Brussels window closes.
Choose a course of action—not only a diagnosis.
Who created the deadline?
Whose timeframe has priority?
Who controls institutional access?
Whose knowledge makes the advocacy legitimate?
Urgency itself becomes part of the inquiry.
03:25–03:50 · Case 3
Allocate tasks, resources and decision-making responsibility across four fictional organisations.
What Fern receives
Design and facilitation of one four-hour session, adapted to Fern’s working reality.
The intended shift