Shaping biodiversity from within: How experts' perceptions of values, rules and knowledges influence biodiversity assessment

While biodiversity conservation has had its local success, worldwide biodiversity loss continues rapidly. Despite the push towards more inclusive and equitable approaches, conservation practices often reinforce existing conceptualizations of biodiversity, excluding other ways of knowing and valuing nature. This paper explores the process of assessing biodiversity among a group of habitat experts. Our study contributes to the literature with empirical understanding of the tension between objective and more pluralistic, relational understandings of biodiversity among a group of experts. We conducted semi‐structured interviews and applied the values, rules and knowledges framework to explore the decision contexts of habitat experts. By outlining, analysing and comparing experts' perceptions of biodiversity, we identified two distinct groups. Group 1 promoted objectivity, intrinsic and ecological values and natural scientific knowledge and was reluctant to discuss socio‐economic aspects. Group 2 aimed for societal impact by integrating values, knowledges, socio‐economic and regulatory perspectives. Groups agreed on ecological principles and rules for measuring biodiversity and the drivers of biodiversity loss. Groups have different ontological assumptions about nature and views of the role conservation experts should play in society. These differences are connected to relational models with respect to goals and practices for biodiversity conservation. Group 1 preferred to provide decision‐making with scientific insight, while Group 2 promotes active participation and knowledge brokering as a part of expert work. To halt biodiversity loss, societal changes sparked by socio‐economic aspects are needed. A pluralistic approach to decision‐making complemented by active expert engagement and knowledge weaving supports societal transformation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.