Beyond ‘diversity of values’: power, pluralism and transformative change in biodiversity conservation

Abstract

The concept of value has, again, become a major bone of contention in biodiversity conservation. Responding to natural capital approaches that aimed to illuminate natures economic value, critics argued that this economic emphasis not only ignores but strengthens the root causes of the ecological crisis. These criticisms have not gone unheard. While attempts to uncover the economic value of nature continue, important biodiversity conservation actors like the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and others have started taking issue with this narrow focus, too. Instead, they advance a pluralist conservation agenda where transformative decision-making promotes a broad diversity of values of nature beyond economic valuation. This article critically-constructively engages with this value pluralist turn. We describe how the debate got to this point, reveal the dangers of this turn vis-à-vis current changes in capitalism and aim to (re)direct it towards more radically transformative possibilities. We do so by 1) showing how capital could exploit a diversity of values agenda for its own reproduction; 2) how capital is historically objectified into material realities and 3) how the outcomes of this process are protected by powerful class interests that need to be acknowledged and confronted. We conclude that value pluralism needs to be embedded in a struggle against capitalism.