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The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly modified Earth’s social-ecological systems in many ways; here we study its impacts on human-nature interactions. We conducted an online survey focused on peoples’ relationships with the non-human world during the pandemic and received valid responses from 3,204 adult residents of the state of Vermont (U.S.A.). We analyzed reported changes in outdoor activities and the values associated with human-nature relationships across geographic areas and demographic characteristics. We find that participation increased on average for some activities (foraging, gardening, hiking, jogging, photography and other art, relaxing alone, walking, and watching wildlife), and decreased for others (camping, relaxing with others). The values respondents ranked as more important during the pandemic factored into two groups, which we label as “Nurture and Recreation values” and “Inspiration and Nourishment values.” Using multinomial logistic regression, we found that respondents’ preferences for changes in activity engagement and value factors are statistically associated with some demographic characteristics, including geography, gender, income, and employment status during the pandemic. Our results suggest that nature may play an important role in coping during times of crisis, but that the specific interactions and associated values that people perceive as most important may vary between populations. Our findings emphasize for both emergency and natural resources planning the importance of understanding variation in how and why people interact with and benefit from nature during crises.

This paper demonstrates how artificial-intelligence language analysis can inform understanding of human–nature relationships and other social phenomena. We demonstrate three techniques by investigating relationships within the popular word2vec word embedding, which is trained on a sample from over 50,000 worldwide news sources. Our first technique investigates what theory-generated analogies are most similar to nature:people. The resource:user analogy is most similar, followed by the playground:child and gift:receiver analogies. Our second technique explores whether nature-related words are affiliated with words that denote race, class, or gender. Nature words tend slightly toward associations with femininity and wealth. Our third technique demonstrates how the relationship between nature and wellbeing compares to other concepts’ relationships to wellbeing—e.g., spirituality–wellbeing, social relations–wellbeing. Nature is more semantically connected to wellbeing than money, social relations, and multiple other wellbeing correlates. Findings are consistent with previous social science and humanities research on human-nature relationships, but do not duplicate them exactly; our results thus offer insight into dominant trends and prevalence of associations. Our analysis also offers a model for using word embeddings to investigate a wide variety of topics.

It is well established that exposure to nature can reduce stress – but what if that “nature” is in a degraded state? We suggest a gap in research on nature—stress connections--and attempt to fill that gap. We conducted an experiment to test whether viewing photographs of polluted water would induce stress, as compared to photographs of clean water. In two conditions, we used sets of images that we digitally altered to be equivalent in every way except for the condition of the water. In the polluted-water treatment, all images depicted Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), also sometimes called cyanobacteria blooms; in the clean-water (control) group, water looked free from HABs. Using a before-after-control-impact design, we tested pre- and post-intervention salivary cortisol to measure response to intervention exposure (i.e., photographs of lakes with or without HABs). We also collected qualitative data related to participants’ reflections on the images they observed, and quantitative data on their connectedness to nature and climate anxiety. Participants recognized the HABs and their negative effects. Yet our hypothesis—that participants who viewed HABs-infested images would have larger increases in cortisol—was not supported, even when considering participants with high and low measures of connectedness to nature and climate anxiety. We discuss possible explanations for the lack of effect found.

Relational values are emerging as an important aspect of ecosystem valuation scholarship and practice. Yet, relatively few empirical examples of their expression exist in the literature. In addition, many characteristics of relational values suggest that they may interact with the quality of empathy, but scholars have not explored that interaction. To address both of these gaps, we designed a semi-structured interview protocol to explore relational values among residents of a large (~28,000 ha) watershed in Vermont, United States of America. We used thematic analysis to explore expressions of relational values and how they may relate to empathy. We discuss how relational values interact with empathy and perspective-taking, as the latter two concepts are theorized in social psychology. In our study, every reference (discrete codable expression) of empathy among our participants co-occurred with a relational-values reference. Conversely, 21% of relational-values references co-occurred with empathy. These results support our proposition that the two concepts are closely related, and we thus argue that there is strong reason to consider empathy as a relational value. We conclude by discussing possible implications of the interaction between relational values and empathy for research and practice, notably their promise for informing the global transformative changes regarding sustainable human–nature relationships called for by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Environmental discourse frequently understands the values of nature as being instrumental, intrinsic, or relational and measured in biophysical, sociocultural, or monetary terms. Yet these specific values and value indicators are underpinned by worldviews, knowledge systems, and broad values that orient people towards nature in different ways and can be shared (or diverge) across spatio-temporal and social scales. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment emphasized the need for decision-making to embrace a plural-values approach that encompasses these diverse meanings of value to catalyze outcomes based on sustainability-aligned broad values like care, unity, reciprocity, and justice. Navigating these diverse values also highlights the salience of religion and its complexity in real-world scenarios as a force that shapes how people conceive the values of nature. For example, proposed modes of plural-value deliberation to reform institutions and shift social norms toward justice and sustainability need to be able to bridge sacred–secular policy divides. This article evaluates how religion interacts with nature’s values by building upon reviews conducted for the IPBES Values Assessment. We present different conceptualizations of religion and explore how these relate to various understandings of social-ecological change. Further, we delineate how religion interacts with values based on three interrelated forms of agency: personal, social, and more-than-human processes. Upon this foundation, we discuss how to better engage religion in environmental policy and research, considering four modes of mobilizing sustainability-aligned values: (1) enabling, (2) including, (3) reflecting, and (4) shifting values and two analytical axes regarding religion’s (1) social scale (individual versus collective) and (2) dynamic continuum (religion as stable versus changeable). Our assessment provides conceptual and practical tools to help consider religion in the processes and practices that shape, reinforce, or impede sustainability-aligned values for more inclusive and effective conservation decision-making.

Many Indigenous and local communities have self-organized to protect their territories, and the values intertwined with those territories, in the face of dispossession and unfair resource extraction. Our transdisciplinary research team collaborated to explore how values of nature relate to territorial management in one such community: the Indigenous community of Capulálpam de Méndez, in southern Mexico. This community is a well-known leader in sustainable management, and the research collaboration aims to foster their local, regional, and global impact. We spoke with 11 groups within the community and 51 participants total. We summarized our conversations using fuzzy cognitive maps, then shared results with participants, local authorities, and the community in general. We identify multiple themes in our data. These include that concepts such as care and celo (protective love and zeal) play central roles in community relationships with the territory; though monetary value plays a role in territorial management, it is treated with wariness; and strong intergenerational considerations—traditions, customs, and ways of thinking inherited from past generations, and consideration for future generations—infuse present-day management decisions. Previous research suggests that these themes may be mirrored in other Indigenous communities; this study adds new insight about how these value-infused themes shape territorial decision making. It also demonstrates that relational values can play a pivotal role in territorial management, and that open discussion of values-management links can facilitate broader community awareness of these values’ roles in community life. These findings, in aggregate, offer potentially helpful guidance for transitions to sustainability.

The ideas of relational values and social values are gaining prominence in sustainability science. Here, we ask: how well do these value conceptions resonate with one Indigenous worldview? The relational values concept broadens conceptions of values beyond instrumental and intrinsic values to encompass preferences and principles about human relationships that involve more-than-humans. The social values concept, an umbrella idea, captures a plurality of values related to society and the common good. After a general description of these two concepts as expressed in the Western peer-reviewed literature, we adopt the lens of relational values to engage with decades of scholarly work and millennia of wisdom based on Indigenous Hawaiian worldviews. We describe five long-standing Hawaiian values that embody notions of appropriate relationships, including human–ecosystem relationships: pono (~ righteousness, balance); hoʻomana (~ creating spirituality); mālama (~ care); kuleana (~ right, responsibility); aloha (~ love, connection). We find that all five resonate deeply with, and help to enrich, relational value concepts. We then draw on these Hawaiian values to discuss differences between relational values and social values frameworks; though both concepts add useful elements to the discourse about values, the relational values concept may be particularly well positioned to represent elements often important to indigenous worldviews—elements such as reciprocity, balance, and extension of “society” beyond human beings. As global processes (e.g., IPBES) commit to better reflecting Indigenous and local knowledge and embrace diverse value concepts as (purported) avenues toward representing values held by diverse communities, our findings suggest that relational values offer special promise and a crucial contribution.

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are associated with diverse and profound values, such as spiritual fulfillment, cultural heritage, and identity-related phenomena. Early ecosystem services research often omitted these deep meanings, but they are increasingly explored in recent studies through a range of disciplinary and epistemological perspectives. In the present article, we distill emerging frontiers of CES research. These frontiers help to characterize varied sources of meaning that are central to the CES ethos. They represent both advances in and opportunities for CES research, especially as related to justice and equity. The frontiers are: broadening definitions and conceptualizations of CES; addressing collective aspects of CES and attending to process; acknowledging that CES are reciprocal, relational, and dynamic; embracing narrative; and better connecting CES to biophysical attributes. We focus on the implications of these frontiers for equity and justice and suggest future research that can help ecosystem services work better address both legacies and current manifestations of injustice.

Stakeholders’ nonmaterial desires, needs, and values often critically influence the success of conservation projects. These considerations are challenging to articulate and characterize, resulting in their limited uptake in management and policy. We devised an interview protocol designed to enhance understanding of cultural ecosystem services (CES). The protocol begins with discussion of ecosystem‐related activities (e.g., recreation, hunting) and management and then addresses CES, prompting for values encompassing concepts identified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and explored in other CES research. We piloted the protocol in Hawaii and British Columbia. In each location, we interviewed 30 individuals from diverse backgrounds. We analyzed results from the 2 locations to determine the effectiveness of the interview protocol in elucidating nonmaterial values. The qualitative and spatial components of the protocol helped characterize cultural, social, and ethical values associated with ecosystems in multiple ways. Maps and situational, or vignette‐like, questions helped respondents articulate difficult‐to‐discuss values. Open‐ended prompts allowed respondents to express a diversity of ecosystem‐related values and proved sufficiently flexible for interviewees to communicate values for which the protocol did not explicitly probe. Finally, the results suggest that certain values, those mentioned frequently throughout the interview, are particularly salient for particular populations. The protocol can provide efficient, contextual, and place‐based data on the importance of particular ecosystem attributes for human well‐being. Qualitative data are complementary to quantitative and spatial assessments in the comprehensive representation of people's values pertaining to ecosystems, and this protocol may assist in incorporating values frequently overlooked in decision making processes.

In the past 5 years, scholarly and policy attention to relational values, a concept that articulates plural values of nature, has grown steadily. To date, there are no published syntheses of empirical research that explicitly addresses relational values. We perform a systematic literature review of n  = 72 empirical studies of relational values to summarize the state of current research and to identify opportunities for future research and conceptual development. In our analysis, we categorize what authors identify as relational values and summarize study characteristics (e.g. study location, methods approach). Authors collectively report n  = 312 unique relational values. Categories of identity , social cohesion , livelihoods , connection to place/human–nature connection and sacred are most common. Scholarship that explicitly addresses relational values has increased since 2017 and exhibits substantial diversity: in how relational values are conceptualized (or not); in disciplinary associations; in geographical location and in data collection methods. We find that most empirical research on relational values does not justify how its results reflect characteristics that establish the relational values concept as unique from other environmental values concepts. As a result, diverse interpretations of the relational values concept pose the risk of the relational values concept being so broad and inclusive that it becomes meaningless, or at least meaning‐light. Policy implications . Understanding why and how nature matters to people is critical to inform effective and just conservation. Relational values can offer nuanced perspectives on the significance associated with people–nature relationships. We argue that empirical relational values research that grounds itself in the concept's ‘core’ characteristics can foster conceptual coherence and bolster the relevance of research findings to sustainability and conservation science. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.