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That at least some aspects of nature possess intrinsic value is considered by some an axiom of conservation. Others consider nature's intrinsic value superfluous or anathema. This range of views among mainstream conservation professionals potentially threatens the foundation of conservation. One challenge in resolving this disparity is that disparaging portrayals of nature's intrinsic value appear rooted in misconceptions and unfounded presumptions about what it means to acknowledge nature's intrinsic value. That acknowledgment has been characterized as vacuous, misanthropic, of little practical consequence to conservation, adequately accommodated by economic valuation, and not widely accepted in society. We reviewed the philosophical basis for nature's intrinsic value and the implications for acknowledging that value. Our analysis is rooted to the notion that when something possesses intrinsic value it deserves to be treated with respect for what it is, with concern for its welfare or in a just manner. From this basis, one can only conclude that nature's intrinsic value is not a vacuous concept or adequately accommodated by economic valuation. Acknowledging nature's intrinsic value is not misanthropic because concern for nature's welfare (aside from its influence on human welfare) does not in any way preclude also being concerned for human welfare. The practical import of acknowledging nature's intrinsic value rises from recognizing all the objects of conservation concern (e.g., many endangered species) that offer little benefit to human welfare. Sociological and cultural evidence indicates the belief that at least some elements of nature possess intrinsic value is widespread in society. Our reasoning suggests the appropriateness of rejecting the assertion that nature's intrinsic value is anathema to conservation and accepting its role as an axiom.

Underneath the turbulent surface of the ubiquitous media-scape lies an even more agile and aggressive set of relations. A central figure in this turmoil of desires seems to be the asignifying sign, which has a hybridising liaison with both the realm of the real virtual and the realm of the actualised. The main question is what does it want? This new materialistic, non-anthropocentric liberty of affect is creating an arena of strange attractors and other topological vector fields in which our own unconscious drive is as effective as that of the steel ball in a pinball machine. Could we isolate the intrinsic drive of the medium from its subservient position in the aesthetic, freeing its desire from the anthropocentric dominion? What does it Yen for? Perhaps this gap is not meant to be filled, as it is this yearning what it yearns for. The asignifying sign cannot be isolated, it is neither here nor there, yet it is conditionally omnipresent, it inhibits the gap, its desire is to affect.

Earth System Science (ESS), the science that among other things explains planetary warming and cooling, gives humans a very long, multilay-ered, and heterotemporal past by placing them at the conjuncture of three (and now variously interdependent) histories whose events are defined by very different timescales: the history of the planet, the history of life on the planet, and the history of the globe made by the logics of empires, capital, and technology. One can therefore read Earth system scientists as historians writing within an emergent regime of historicity. We could call it the planetary or Anthropocenic regime of historicity to distinguish it from the global regime of historicity that has enabled many humanist and social-science historians to deal with the theme of climate change and the idea of the Anthropocene.

Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being 1 , 2 , addressing the global biodiversity crisis 3 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 ever 4 . Notwithstanding agreements to incorporate nature’s values into actions, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) 5 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 6 , 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 nature 7 . Arguably, a ‘values crisis’ underpins the intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change 8 , pandemic emergence 9 and socio-environmental injustices 10 . 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. Following a wide-ranging review of studies, reports and policies about nature’s multiple values, combinations of values-centred approaches are proposed to improve valuation of nature, address barriers to uptake in decision-making, and make transformative changes towards more just and sustainable futures.

More than half a century after its publication, reading J.M. Coetzee’s first novel Dusklands remains a deeply unsettling experience. This paper offers the argument that an important part of the novel’s persistently disturbing affect lies in the way it threads together a human-centric critique of empire with post-anthropocentric considerations of the form of human life. Drawing on an emergent planetary rubric – one that foregrounds the phenomenological challenge of telling stories of geological and biospheric change in tandem with human-historical affairs (Chakrabarty, Nuttall) – I propose that Coetzee’s novel stages both a humanist critique of imperial pathologies, and an exploration of the formation of human identity in relation to a more-than-human environment. The simultaneous articulation of these paradigms, I suggest, is a source for the stylistic and ethical dissonance that animates both Eugene Dawn’s and Jacobus Coetzee’s accounts. In providing a literary space for exploring the uneasy convergence of humanist and geo-social concerns, Dusklands gains renewed relevance for contemporary efforts to reconcile postcolonial critique with the conceptual implications of the planetary turn.

Archaeology is a field of research that relies largely on the remains of past humans and nonhuman animals and the traces of their interactions within a range of material conditions. In archaeology, as in sociocultural anthropology, the dominant analytical perspective on human-animal relations is ontologically anthropocentric: the study of the human use of nonhuman animals for the benefit of human beings, and scholarly inquiry that is largely for the sake of elucidating what nonhuman animals can tell us about the human condition. This review outlines the historical trajectory of Anglo-American archaeology's encounters with animal remains, and human-animal interactions, within this framework and considers recent attempts to move beyond anthropocentrism.

Awareness that our relationship with the world has profoundly changed has become increasingly widespread; among its effects is the recurring presence, in public debate, of discourses on nature, both within and beyond academic and cultural circuits of landscape architecture. This proliferation of reflections, while generating a wide range of visions and positions, nevertheless often appears to polarize around certain maximalist and simplified interpretations. These include, for instance, nostalgic readings that advocate a ‘return to a good and beautiful nature’; interpretations informed by a form of multispecies thinking that would erase any distinction between humanity and nature; and, finally, reassuring regulatory and procedural responses, mostly oriented toward performance-based or conservation approaches.