Episode Five: Sarah Mecartney on Backcasting

I’m excited to share our next conversation in The Futures Workshop series: my interview with Sarah Mecartney (Regional Director of Melanesia for the Pacific Community).

Sarah has chosen to talk about Backcasting, one of my favourite futures tools. She makes it sound much less intricate than this diagram! But as a visual aid it may be helpful for you to refer to during or after our conversation.

We also have a good chat about the unique futures skills of indigenous populations, many of whom have traditional worldviews and practices that align perfectly with the “new” futures thinking recently embraced by the Global North.

I chaired a panel featuring Sarah and other indigenous leaders at the Dubai Futures Forum last November, where we talked about some of these commonalities and opportunities to link old and new. She’s a warm, smart, engaging speaker and this podcast interview could have gone on for hours!

We mention the Pacific Pathfinder toolkit - you can find more on that here.

Please enjoy this episode, and as always I’ll follow it up with a practical workshop episode in a few days time.