Raising awareness of the values of biodiversity, as envisaged by the IPBES Value Assessment(2022), is essential to strengthen the ecological attitudes and behaviours needed to protect and restore biodiversity. However, human responses to the rough edges of nature and the associated disvalues (negative values) are also crucial to a biodiversity-friendly future, an aspect that has only received little attention, so far (e.g. by Lliso et al. 2022). For manystakeholders, such disvalues raise concerns (e.g. mosquitoes after a river revitalisation), which hinders conservation efforts. Biodiversity conservation strategies thus need to include appropriate responses to disvalues. Moreover, a nuanced discussion of disvalues also preventspolarisation in the environmental discourse by counteracting both the demonisation andidealisation of nature.
Our project directly addresses the research gap on environmental disvalues by exploring howpeople do, can, and should respond to these negative values. Through a transdisciplinary environmental humanities approach that integrates qualitative stakeholder analysis, cultural and literary studies, environmental ethics and the practical experience of a conservation NGO(WWF Switzerland), we aim to stimulate a more differentiated reflection and discourse on the rough edges of nature.
In the preparatory phase of this project, we identified 'wetlands' as an ideal thematic context to study environmental disvalues. These biodiversity-rich ecosystems are often associated with disvalues such as land infertility, flooding, fog, and mosquitoes and carry cultural connotations of danger, gloominess and melancholy. Moreover, as directly observed in the WWF Switzerland, the wetland species beaver, is becoming increasingly controversial in human settlement areas, which means that the project's efforts to prevent polarisation will be of direct practical importance in this context.
This project has four main objectives:
1.Understanding different stakeholers' environmental disvalues and their responses to these disvalues in the context of wetlands and the beaver.
2.Investigating cultural and literary narratives on wetlands that have long addressed nature's negative aspects, offering insights into how societies have historically responded to disvalues.
3.Developing a conceptual framework for environmental disvalues through systematic analysis and argumentation in environmental ethics
4.Generating practical tools based on the expertise of WWF Switzerland to facilitate balanced, non-polarized discussions on environmental disvalues in the context of biodiversity in the general public, the conservation community, and in policymaking

The exploration of disvalues and their narratives makes an original and significant contribution to the environmental humanities. By raising awareness of environmental disvalues, we aim at promoting more nuanced worldviews and reducing polarization in society, to ultimately contribute to bottom-up transformative change. In the specific context of conservation strategies, our project equips stakeholders with tools to recognize disvalues as potential obstacles –both in relation to wetlands and beyond–and to develop appropriate responses to address them, thereby promoting biodiversity.