Biodiversity Offsetting and Relational Values: Addressing inclusion and legitimate expectations

The rapid loss of global biodiversity has been dubbed the sixth mass extinction event (Lewis & Maslin, 2015). Biodiversity governance is already difficult due to contextual factors at local, global, and regional scales (Rockström et al., 2023; Gupta et al., 2023). The interests of local, Indigenous, and other stakeholders can clash with different extrinsic, intrinsic, and relational value sets with biodiversity that can bring forth debates on morality (Armstrong, 2024; Petersson & Stoett, 2022; Biermann & Kim, 2020; Oksanen, 1997). For example, biodiversity conservation can harm relational values that Indigenous and other local people have with nature by designating certain biodiversity areas as restricted areas, all while protecting the intrinsic value of biodiversity (Armstrong, 2024; Gupta et al., 2023). And while biodiversity offsetting can harm both intrinsic and relational values, there can be benefits with increased stakeholder engagement and overall decision-making that can benefit both people and nature (Armstrong, 2024; Armstrong, 2025; Oksanen, 1997; Sebo, 2022; Kallhoff, 2014; Rockström et al., 2023; IUCN, 2015). However, biodiversity offsetting is often met with heavy criticism from environmental ethicists and Indigenous scholars (Karlsson & Björnberg, 2021; Whyte, 2018; Armstrong, 2025). Political theorists also debate the morality of biodiversity offsetting due to these intrinsic values (Armstrong, 2025). Indigenous scholars argue that the relational values Indigenous peoples have with biodiversity are also disrupted with biodiversity offsetting (Armstrong, 2025; Whyte, 2018). Despite this criticism, biodiversity offsetting is becoming an increasingly prominent method of response to biodiversity loss (Armstrong, 2024). Furthermore, it is clear that there are a multitude of different perspectives on the ethics of biodiversity offsetting. Thus, the research question I ask is: how can decision-making on biodiversity offsetting be more inclusive of relational values with other interests and value sets? I argue that these decisions can be made by defining legitimate expectations within the context of biodiversity loss, with the starting point grounded in the exploration of whose voices are being included with stakeholder engagement in decision-making for biodiversity offsetting.