Four Scenarios
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005
This chapter presents four internally consistent scenarios that explore aspects of plausible global futures and their implications for ecosystem services. The probability of any one of these scenarios being the real future is very small. Each scenario might resemble some people’s ideal world, but one lesson to us as we developed them was that all four scenarios have both strengths and potentially serious weaknesses. An ideal future would probably involve a mix of all four, with different elements dominating at different times and in different places. The future could be far better or far worse than any of the scenarios, depending on choices made by key decision-makers and other people in society who bring about change. Our purpose in developing the stories is to encourage decision-makers to consider some positive and negative implications of the different development trajectories.The Global Orchestration scenario depicts a worldwide connected society in which global markets are well developed.
The Order from Strength scenario represents a regionalized and fragmented world concerned with security and protection, emphasizing primarily regional markets, and paying little attention to the common goods, and with an individualistic attitude toward ecosystem management. The Adapting Mosaic scenario depicts a fragmented world resulting from discredited global institutions. The TechnoGarden scenario depicts a globally connected world relying strongly on technology and on highly managed and often-engineered ecosystems to deliver needed goods and services.
 Millennium Assessment major findings | [ ] |
| Millennium Assessment Scenarios 2000-2050 | [ ] |
