Contemporary biodiversity policy platforms increasingly emphasize “relational values” as a basis for conservation efforts. Proponents of relational values argue that environmental protection should be guided by the meaningful relationships people have with places, species, and practices. This paper advances a pragmatic critique, contending that relational value, as a foundational guide for environmental ethics and policy, is poorly suited to addressing biodiversity loss.

First, the epistemic problem: what is already valued is not more important than what remains unknown or currently uncared for. Relational approaches privilege the known and the familiar, biasing decision-making toward salient attachments while neglecting under-studied or distant ecological goods. This produces a systematic blindness to ecological processes and entities that lack adequate recognition.

Second, the normative problem: the content of many sincere attachments misaligns with biodiversity objectives and with widely shared value intuitions. Caring well can still mean caring for the wrong things, like outdoor cats and sentimental landscape preferences producing unwanted ecological outcomes such as biodiversity loss and trophic disruption, even as agents act from relational commitment. Relational value lacks resources to arbitrate such conflicts without smuggling in non-relational normative-ecological criteria.

Finally, the institutional problem: when adopted in biodiversity governance, relational frameworks largely affirm existing attachments rather than transforming them. They license policy to prioritize what people already claim to care about, without challenging entrenched patterns of attention or neglect. As a result, they fail to extend moral concern to the obscure, the microscopic, or the globally displaced ecological harms that fall outside of everyday perception.

Taken together, these problems show that relational value is neither normatively reliable nor institutionally resilient. The result is not a richer environmental ethic but a sentimentalized anthropocentrism easily co-opted by existing destructive practices. I conclude that relational value cannot serve as a moral foundation for biodiversity decision-making: what is required is a normative standard capable of grounding obligation, even toward what we neither know nor love.

How to cite: Nobles, E.: The Limits of Relational Values in Biodiversity Ethics, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-72, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-72, 2026.

The objects of biodiversity conservation (BDC) are challenging to define in ethical terms. The concept of biodiversity, in its various forms (genetic, species, and ecological), is predicated on the existence of complex relationships between organisms, populations, species, habitats, and ecological conditions. Moreover, the different levels of biodiversity are interdependent, and their relationships are critical to the resilience and adaptive capacity of species, ecosystems and cultures. The concept of relationality is thus fundamental to the comprehension as well as protection of biodiversity. However, precisely the inherently relational nature of biodiversity and human-nature relationships poses a considerable challenge for biodiversity ethics in the context of modern moral theories. A ‘relational shift of thought’ is increasingly being called for by conservation scholars as the most promising approach to BDC and the needed ‘deep leverage point transformation’ for sustainability. The IPBES Conceptual Framework (2015) and the subsequent Nature Futures Framework (2023) both place significant emphasis on the human-nature relationality, relational values (in addition to intrinsic and instrumental ones), and the relationally justified plurality of cultural, contextual and value perspectives to human-nature relationships. However, given the concept of relationality is one of significant complexity, it is important to understand its meanings, what is the ethical relevance of various relationalities, and the potential for relationality to provide ethical assistance for addressing biodiversity loss. In this presentation, the modes and uses of the concept of relationality in the BDC discourse will first be reviewed briefly to elucidate their ethical relevance. It is then argued that the ontological, agential and epistemological aspects of relationality should also be considered when seeking ethical guidance for BDC. It is contended that, in addition to providing space for other ethical stances, taking relationality seriously and making relational strategies work in BDC calls for critical scrutiny of and conceptual revisions in the dominant modern Western ethics, disclosing a novel relational approach to ethical theory. It is therefore essential to further explore the challenges and possibilities of relational ethics. The presentation is related to an EU-funded Marie-Skłodowska-Curie research project on Relational Biodiversity Ethics REBET (2025-2027).

How to cite: Nurmi, S.: Ethical relevance of relational conceptualisations for biodiversity protection, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-173, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-173, 2026.

Relational Values have been proposed in the discourse of biodiversity conservation as a third category of environmental value alongside intrinsic and instrumental values. This presentation connects a philosophical account of relational values with insight from environmental aesthetics arguing that aesthetic values– especially as discussed in non-cognitive theories of environmental aesthetics– are typical cases of bidirectional relational values.

On the account adopted here, relational values arise from bidirectional human-nature relationships (Deplazes-Zemp and Chapman, 2021). One direction refers to the contribution of these values to a flourishing human life. The other direction concerns what the valuer gives back to nature. This can take the form of support or care for nature, or a cognitive, emotional, and motivational orientation towards nature, for instance, as attention, interest, wonder, and respect.

While the character of this bidirectional involvement of the valuer and valued object remains under-theorised in the context of relational values, it has been a recurring theme in environmental aesthetics. Arnold Berleant, for instance, describes a “sensory immersion in the natural world” (2004) and Ronald W. Hepburn refers to the role of attentive perception (1997). However, it is Emily Brady’s theory of integrated aesthetics that comes closest to the notion of the bidirectionality of relational values. She characterises the aesthetic experience as a relationship between the appreciator and nature, one which involves a recognition of nature in its ‘otherness’ (2003).

This presentation builds on the understanding of the aesthetic experience as a bidirectional relationship to explore how aesthetic values are a type of relational values and what we can learn about relational values more generally from environmental aesthetics.

Berleant A (1993) The Aesthetics of Art and Nature.

Brady E (2003) Aesthetics of the Natural Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Deplazes-Zemp A and Chapman M (2021) The ABCs of Relational Values: Environmental Values That Include Aspects of Both Intrinsic and Instrumental Valuing.

Hepburn RW (1997) Trivial and serious in aesthetic appreciation of nature

How to cite: Deplazes Zemp, A.: Aesthetic values as a typical case of bidirectional relational values, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-617, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-617, 2026.

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Keywords: Relational Values, Ecological Self, Care Ethics, Pluriverse Ethics, Decolonial Conservation, Environmental Ethics

How to cite: Osorio Peláez, C., Frigo, G., Delorme, D., and Alkoc, B.: Spatializing Relational Values through Care Ethics, the Ecological Self, and Decolonial Conservation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-873, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-873, 2026.

Biodiversity loss is a major ecological crisis of our time. Although the seriousness of the issue is widely acknowledged, communicating its complexity – such as the deterioration of ecosystems and the erosion of genetic diversity within species populations – remains a challenge. The concept of biodiversity, and its decline, may be too abstract for the general public to fully grasp, especially as urbanization increasingly distances people from direct contact with nature, making it difficult to generate broad support for its protection. 

Interestingly, many biologists, naturalists, and philosophers have argued that one of the strongest cases for protecting biodiversity may lie in its aesthetic value, as beauty and other aesthetic qualities are thought to have the most compelling impact on humans. Aesthetic experience may certainly exert considerable power in eliciting psychological and affective responses. Throughout history, aesthetics has been employed to serve political, religious, social, psychological, and economic purposes. Among these, aesthetic values have historically played a central role in motivating environmental conservation. However, the shift in environmental conservation from the preservation of isolated natural areas to biodiversity conservation everywhere introduces new complexities to the already problematic role of aesthetics in environmentalism.

In our recent study, we explored the aesthetic appreciation of biodiversity in terms of the classic triadic conception of species diversity, ecosystem diversity, and genetic diversity. We argued that there is a mismatch between “real” and “apparent” biodiversity, primarily because human perception offers only a limited view of biological diversity at all its levels. However, we only touched upon a central issue – namely, that biodiversity is dynamic and that nature exists as a web of interactive systems. Organisms affect each other and their environment, and the environment affects them. In this presentation, we expand our approach to the aesthetic appreciation of ecosystems by examining the issue from the perspective of biotic and abiotic relations. We continue to argue that people's direct perception and experience of biological variation – as reflectred in their aesthetic experiences of nature – differ from scientifically assessed biodiversity.

How to cite: Mikkonen, J. and Raatikainen, K.: Aesthetics, Biodiversity, and Ecosystems, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-82, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-82, 2026.

​This contribution aims to explore the role of ex situ conservation institutions, and aquariums in particular, in shaping our ideas of biodiversity.

Ex situ conservation fulfils multiple relevant functions. It helps protect endangered species that may not survive in the wild. It also provides urban citizens with direct experience of organisms that are not part of people’s everyday lives, thus contributing to both scientific education and recreational activities. Although justifiable as a good compromise between the need to improve environmental literacy and to preserve species, ex situ conservation raises several ethical and epistemic issues. In fact, some scholars have compared these institutions to museums, based on the fact that they share the same enclosed structure and didactic goals.

This work addresses the representation of marine biodiversity in aquariums, paradigmatically exemplifying the constraints imposed by ex situ conservation. Aquariums display aesthetically stunning scenarios of marine life that nevertheless lack multiple elements, such as predatory and reproductive behaviours as they occur in the natural environment, or the immersive nature of a real experience in the water (replaced by bidimensionality), resulting in a simplification of ecological relationships. A lack of awareness concerning these limits risks promoting a static view of biodiversity and conservation practices, which should not be reduced to spatial delimitation. Moreover, aquariums may overrepresent visible species at the expense of microorganisms, or suggest a hierarchical representation of life, in which salient animals are seen as ‘protagonists’ and vegetable species are often reduced to a visual background.

If ex situ conservation well represents species diversity, it is questionable to what extent it really accounts for all the different aspects of natural diversity. Since the isolation of living beings depending on taxonomic and spatial criteria implies their abstraction from their natural habitats, and thus a reduction of their possible natural behaviours, how could we expand the notion of biodiversity - including the functional and relational aspects - without making it unavailable?

Discussing the epistemological structure and constraints of aquariums may help reflect on how to avoid ‘artified’ conceptions of nature and promote a dynamic notion of marine biodiversity.

How to cite: La Penna, C. and Casati, R.: Marine biodiversity and the epistemology of aquariums, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-909, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-909, 2026.

This generative philosophical examination lays out the concept of a biodiversity heuristic (mental simplification that is scientifically unprecise yet works well for guiding practical actions), discusses its value for everyday conservation, and proposes a heuristic for 'everyday conservation', that is, more inclusive biodiversity conservation that is comprehensible and meaningful to diverse actors in various contextual settings. In particular, this work aims to reconceptualize or reframe biodiversity and related notions in a way that is more suitable for capturing the everyday biodiversity actions and ‘everyday conservationism’ especially in environments that are cohabited by both humans and nonhumans. The purpose is not to replace environmental scientific vocabulary or research framings but to discuss how complex ecological concepts fit better into everyday realities when they are translated into heuristics. The first part of the presentation focuses on the mapping of the different layers of biodiversity. Here, I provide the outlook synthesis of how the basic ecological meanings of biodiversity are placed onto different layers of spatial scales, and I place them alongside the notion(s) of biocultural diversity, which forms an additional layer of biodiversity. After presenting the mapping, the presentation focuses on the idea of ‘a heuristic to biodiversity conservation’ which, it is argued, is present both in conservation-minded professional communities, such as biodiversity-benign farmers, and in many non-Western communities and their conceptions of reciprocally respectful nature relations. I will make the argument that while heuristics often emerge pragmatically and contradict with philosophical ideals of precision, it would be a very worthwhile project for philosophers to help communities constitute new heuristics that help make sense of complex and wicked problems such as biodiversity crisis. I illustrate the point by translating selected layer-points into a heuristic that provide applicable conceptualizations and imaginaries for the ‘everyday conservation’ of biodiversity, from farmland cohabitability to tree diversity in urban spaces and dietary diversity on our plates.

How to cite: Kortetmäki, T.: Layers of biodiversity and a heuristic to everyday conservation, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-431, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-431, 2026.

There is a long and widespread history, from 18th century Enlightenment to the IUNC red lists, of associating extinction with death. But this association faces Epicurus’ challenge: death cannot be harmful because dead persons cannot be harmed; likewise, a species cannot be harmed through extinction because they are extinct. However, isn’t it obvious that both death and extinction are bad events and consider otherwise would be fatal for conservation? In this presentation, we elaborate some aspects of the analogy by focusing on the moral assessment of death and extinction and the inference of badness of extinction from the badness of death. We consider two opposite positions: one stating that death and extinction are not bad (for the same reason), and the other stating that death and extinction are bad (for the same reason). The idea is to expand arguments given for badness or “unbadness” of death to extinction. Instead of considering the metaphysical aspects of analogy between death and extinction, we look at the value questions and moral dimensions of this analogy and ask whether there is a case for the grounding the moral evaluation of extinction on its commonality with the moral evaluation of death. Against the Epicurean view, we will examine the deprivation view that aims to explain why death is (often) bad for the one who dies. The deprivation thesis is usually understood as a comparativist view. The actual life and death are compared to a counterfactual life that would have taken place if one had not died (when one did). It assumes that both dying and extinction can be “untimely” or “immature”. As for species, this assumption is highly problematic. Nevertheless, we claim it is more promising for serving the task of explaining the badness of extinction on something else than instrumental values of species.  

How to cite: Oksanen, M. and Siipi, H.: On associating extinction with death: Fatal implications for conservation?, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-80, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-80, 2026.

Microbial life constitutes the vast majority of Earth’s biodiversity and drives the ecological processes upon which macroscopic life depends. Yet microbes remain neglected in environmental ethics (Wienhues 2022) and in global biodiversity and conservation initiatives (Junker and Farwig 2025). In this paper, I argue that this institutionalised exclusion reflects an entrenched ethical bias toward macroscopic life. To challenge this bias, I turn to Muraca’s relational axiology (2011, 2016), which rejects the intrinsic–instrumental value dichotomy and instead posits forms of value based on relational loci of co-constitution. Muraca distinguishes fundamental-relational values, grounded in identity-constituting relations, from functional-relational values, grounded in the roles organisms perform towards certain ends.

I argue that microbial assemblages exemplify fundamental-relational value. They are not merely background conditions - they are metabolic constituents of flourishing. Gut microbiomes shaping cognition, mycorrhizal fungi structuring forest resilience, and coral-algal-bacterial symbioses enabling persistence under climate stress all demonstrate how microbial relations are formative of flourishing across scales. Microbes, I will argue, also bear functional-relational value given their contributions as necessary means to both ecological dynamics (e.g., in coral reefs) and cultural practices (e.g., Koji fermentation).

The upshot will be that applying Muraca’s axiology to microbial life offers a promising remedy for the deep macroscopic bias in biodiversity thought; however, her taxonomy requires some expansion. To account for microbial value comprehensively, I introduce process-relational value as a category alongside fundamental-relational and functional-relational value.

Whereas functional-relational value concerns plausibly replaceable roles, process-relational value captures the contributions of necessary means whose participation in unfolding ecological processes is non-fungible and constitutive of the process’s integrity. For example, the role of coral polyps in the construction and maintenance of coral reefs is not reducible to a multiply realisable function but represents continuous participation as a necessary means in the dynamics of the greater whole (the reef).

With an expanded Muracarian axiology in place, I explore how a microbially-inclusive environmental ethic could overcome the macroscopic bias and inform biodiversity initiatives, e.g., by integrating microbiome health into monitoring frameworks such as the UN’s Global Environment Monitoring System.

Please consider this abstract for Philosophies of Biodiversity Conservation (TRA4).

How to cite: Battersby, H.: Towards a taxonomy of microbial value., World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-757, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-757, 2026.

There is a deep tension within conservation: The field aims to protect the well-being of flora, fauna, and ecosystems, but often goes about doing this by mass-killing invasive animals. Traditional techniques, including hunting, poisons, and diseases, also often involve prolonged suffering, and cycles of harm that lead to multiple generations of invasive species being killed with no clear end in sight. Into this picture comes biotechnology, a field of research that modifies the fundamental building blocks of life. Gene-drive approaches to invasive species control, in comparison to traditional techniques, seem to offer win-win solutions from an ethics standpoint – they not only cause less death, but do so in ways that are consistent with compassionate conservation goals. In line with recent work by Rohwer, I argue that we are morally obliged to fund these technologies, and take seriously their potential deployment on a wide range of invasive species. The second half of this talk is, however, dedicated to tempering our expectations of gene-drives from an ethics perspective. These techniques, while promising along some lines, run the risk of shifting harms rather than removing them. In particular, they involve the risk of off-target effects including mutations and, perhaps more seriously, the accidental global extinction of target species. They also may threaten concepts of ‘naturalness’ that underpin traditional conservation, albeit largely because they offer increased control over animal biology rather than because they pose a novel threat, and finally, in some cases gene-drive techniques may shift harms from the invasive species back on to native ecosystems, meaning these aren’t necessarily clear-cut win-win scenarios. For all these issues, however, this talk is an optimistic one, arguing that while we ought to be cautious, we also ought to think that the future of conservation will be a kinder, and more effective one, if gene-drives live up to their potential.

How to cite: Thresher, A.: Killing Nature to Save It: Conservation Science, Biotechnology, and Ethical Extermination, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-76, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-76, 2026.

Approximately one million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades (IBPES 2019). Humanity’s land use remains the main driver of biodiversity loss, but the role of climate change is growing more significant and urgent (UN 2025): Climate change is profoundly altering ecosystems, resulting in mass mortality of plants and animals and the first climate change–associated species extinctions; and with every fraction of a degree increase in global temperatures, the risk of extinction increases and accelerates (IPCC 2022). We cannot achieve our biodiversity goals without responding effectively to climate change.

Our climate change response portfolio contains at least two major types: first, mitigation involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions to minimize climate change–related hazards; second, adaptation involves altering behaviors, systems, and ways of life in response to actual or predicted climate change to reduce vulnerability and exposure. Philosophers have focused overwhelmingly on mitigation. However, adaptation is now unavoidable. Unfortunately, the mitigation focus leaves us unprepared for the ethical challenges of adapting to climate change. Here, I address an important yet underexplored issue in adaptation ethics. What is the right place of biodiversity conservation in adaptation planning and policy? How should our adaptation and conservation agendas relate, particularly regarding wild animals?

Climate change threatens harms to individual animal welfare, populations, species, and biodiversity (Ripple et al. 2025). These harms matter intrinsically and instrumentally. So, there is a prima facie case for protecting wild animals by assisting their adaption to climate change. But how should we do this, at what cost, and to what ends? What ethical tradeoffs arise? In §1, I argue for including wild animal conservation in our adaptation agenda, rehearsing arguments from the literature (McShane 2016; Palmer 2016, 2021; Pepper 2019; Sebo 2022). In §2, I characterize three categories of assisted adaptation: structural (e.g., artificial habitats); behavioral (e.g., managed migration); and physiological (e.g., genetic interventions). In §3, I explore tradeoffs in each category. I conclude by identifying a tension between our obligation to assist wild animals and our valuing them as wild. For assisted adaptation can be transformative in ways that diminish or eliminate wild animals’ status as wild.

How to cite: Ferguson, K.: Climate Change Adaptation, Biodiversity Conservation, and the Place of Wild Animals, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-246, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-246, 2026.

This paper argues in favor of the triangular affair of justice that concerns all efforts to mitigate climate change. The affair consists of a threefold conflict between sufficiency entitlements of human beings either potentially undermined by climate change or various decarbonization measures. At the same time, climate change and decarbonization have similar effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This means that not reducing emissions and letting climate change happen conflicts with human entitlements and ecosystem functioning while decarbonizing can have the very same effects on humans and biodiversity. Overall, this paper shows that in decarbonization these conflicts need to be considered, but it also acknowledges that with careful choice of measures synergies are possible.

In a first section I show how in the literature on climate justice the duty to decarbonize has been justified as a claim of sufficientarian justice. Discussing the implications of such claims of justice provides the normative basis for conceptualizing the triangular affair developed in this paper. The section thereafter explains the negative implications of decarbonization for sufficiency thresholds. I argue that many measures to decarbonize imply a threat to sufficiency entitlements of justice of similar importance as the ones to be secured by emission abatement. Considering biodiversity decline uncovers further infringements of sufficiency levels of justice. Climate change as well as some decarbonization measures risk undermining the functioning of ecosystems or the services they provide. This leads to the triangular affair that in my eyes must be considered in all decarbonizing transitions. By discussing this affair and potential synergies I finally show how tragic choices can be avoided by relying on a weak interpretation of sufficientarian justice.

I demonstrate that potential conflicts exist between three angles of sufficiency entitlements: i) sufficiency entitlements threatened by climate change, ii) sufficiency thresholds at risk due to decarbonization measures, and iii) sufficiency thresholds that presuppose protecting biodiversity. Sufficientarian approaches of justice form the basis for conceptualizing this triangular affair of decarbonization. Although navigating between the three angles of the affair poses challenges to these approaches, weak sufficientarianism provides options for resolving the identified potential conflicts.

How to cite: Wallimann-Helmer, I.: The Triangular Affair of Sufficientarian Justice in Decarbonization and Biodiversity Protection, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-509, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-509, 2026.

Protected areas are often portrayed as neutral spaces for safeguarding biodiversity, yet their management is neither apolitical nor ethically straightforward. Conventional approaches often frame conservation as a technical, scientific exercise guided by ecological metrics such as population density and habitat integrity, thereby falling in the realm of the 'hard sciences'. However, conservation decisions are always entangled with social values, contested interests, governance structures, and human fallibility, which, arguably, brings it also into the realm of the social sciences and humanities, and, specifically, philosophy. In South Africa, conservation complexity is amplified by the legacies of colonisation, apartheid, and the displacement of indigenous people to create national parks, as well as being currently intensified by issues such as persistent poverty and inequality, oftentimes visible close proximity to national parks. A further complication in the South African reality is recent policy shifts which mark a transition from a biocentric “traditional conservation,” which centres nature’s intrinsic worth, to “new conservation,” which foregrounds human benefits and ecosystem services. This anthropocentric turn invites the logics of the market into conservation practice, infusing it with neoliberal ideals such as privatisation, decentralisation, and the monetisation of ecosystems. While this shift is often justified as pragmatic, it raises profound ethical questions: What is lost when nature is valued instrumentally rather than inherently? Can ecosystems be meaningfully reduced to capital assets without distorting their moral significance?

This paper intervenes in these debates by introducing the Four Quadrants of Ethical Risk (4QER) framework, an analytical tool that exposes the ethical fault lines of conservation monetisation. Drawing on McCauley’s argument that nature’s aggregate value is “infinite,” the framework challenges the reduction of ecological value to market terms. Using South African protected areas as a focal point, the paper argues that monetisation is not a neutral strategy but a deeply normative choice with significant moral risks. Given this, this framework provides a novel ethical matrix that can be used to inform everyday decision making in the South African (and possibly beyond) conservation reality when issues of monetisation arise in discussions.

How to cite: Coetser, Y.: The Four Quadrants of Ethical Risk (4QER): Rethinking the Ethics of Monetising Nature, World Biodiversity Forum 2026, Davos, Switzerland, 14–19 Jun 2026, WBF2026-61, https://doi.org/10.5194/wbf2026-61, 2026.