Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being^1,2, addressing the global biodiversity crisis³ still implies confronting barriers to incorporating nature’s diverse values into decision-making. These barriers include powerful interests supported by current norms and legal rules such as property rights, which determine whose values and which values of nature are acted on. A better understanding of how and why nature is (under)valued is more urgent than ever⁴. Notwithstanding agreements to incorporate nature’s values into actions, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)⁵ and the UN Sustainable Development Goals⁶, predominant environmental and development policies still prioritize a subset of values, particularly those linked to markets, and ignore other ways people relate to and benefit from nature⁷. Arguably, a ‘values crisis’ underpins the intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change⁸, pandemic emergence⁹ and socio-environmental injustices¹⁰. On the basis of more than 50,000 scientific publications, policy documents and Indigenous and local knowledge sources, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessed knowledge on nature’s diverse values and valuation methods to gain insights into their role in policymaking and fuller integration into decisions^7,11. Applying this evidence, combinations of values-centred approaches are proposed to improve valuation and address barriers to uptake, ultimately leveraging transformative changes towards more just (that is, fair treatment of people and nature, including inter- and intragenerational equity) and sustainable futures.

Peterson, G. D., Z. V. Harmackova, M. Meacham, C. Queiroz, A. Jiménez Aceituno, J. J. Kuiper, K. Malmborg, N. E. Sitas, and E. M. Bennett. 2018. Welcoming different perspectives in IPBES: “Nature’s contributions to people” and “Ecosystem services”. Ecology and Society 23(1):39. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10134-230139

Reaching sustainable and just futures for people and nature requires tackling complex social-ecological challenges across multiple scales, from local to global. Pathways towards such futures are largely driven by people’s decisions and actions, underpinned by multiple types of motivations and values. Thus, understanding the link between potential futures and the values underpinning them represents a key question of current sustainability research, recently embraced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Particularly the understanding of causal chains leading from values to futures across different contexts and scales is vital to identify which sustainability pathways to collectively pursue. In this study, we build on a transdisciplinary knowledge co-creation process in an array of local case studies in protected areas in the Czechia (Central Europe). We apply the Life Framework of Values and the Three Horizons framework in an innovative value-based participatory scenario building process to explore the relationships between (1) multiple types of values, (2) actions taken by different types of stakeholders, and (3) their potential impacts on nature, nature’s contributions to people (including ecosystem services) and good quality of life. The resulting local-scale value-based pathways show the complex relationship between multiple types of values for nature and potential future trajectories. Finally, we reflect on the utility of value-based participatory scenario planning as a means to strengthen sustainable governance. We highlight that if participatory deliberation of values is to support decision-making processes, its design needs to carefully reflect local context and institutional set-up.