People depend on functioning ecosystems, which provide benefits that support human existence and wellbeing. The relationship between people and nature has been experienced and conceptualized in multiple ways. Recently, ecosystem services (ES) concepts have permeated science, government policies, multinational environmental agreements, and science-policy interfaces. In 2017, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) introduced a new and closely related concept-Nature's Contributions to People (NCP). The introduction of NCP has sparked some lively discussion and confusion about the distinguishing characteristics between ES and NCP. In order to clarify their conceptual relation, we identify eleven specific claims about novel elements from the latest NCP literature and analyze how far ES research has already contributed to these corresponding conceptual claims in the existing ES literature. We find a mixed-picture, where on six specific conceptual claims (culture, social sciences and humanities, indigenous and local knowledge, negative contributions of nature, generalizing perspective, non-instrumental values and valuation) NCP does not differ greatly from past ES research, but we also find five conceptual claims (diverse worldviews, context-specific perspective, relational values, fuzzy and fluid reporting categories and groups, inclusive language and framing) where NCP provides novel conceptualizations of people and nature relations.

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1. There are strong links between heritage and the environment yet, heritage is not fully included in existing ecosystem-based frameworks. Different understandings of heritage values exist, and heritage values are not yet related to key value categories in environmental values research. 2. To address this gap and facilitate a common values-based approach, we develop a novel framework that links heritage and environmental values. First, we expand the understanding of heritage values by linking heritage to key environmental value categories. We then use the Life Framework of Values to show how heritage features in the different ways in which people relate to the world. 3. The resulting heritage values framework is operationalised by applying it to six case examples drawn from participatory research on the governance of European coastal and maritime heritage.4. We found that the environment was not only considered to be a setting for heritage but was itself valued as heritage in different ways; that heritage is not extrinsic to the environment but is also a way in which people see meaning in the environment; and that multiple value frames and types were involved in shaping this perspective. The results highlight important discrepancies between stakeholders' perspectives and existing management approaches.

In recent years, many local authorities in the UK have run local climate assemblies (LCAs) such as citizens’ assemblies or juries, with the goal of developing citizen-led solutions to the climate crisis. In this essay, we argue that a ‘convenient fiction’ often underpins the way local authority actors explain the rationale for running LCAs. This convenient fiction runs as follows: LCAs are commissioned as a response to the climate threat, and local decision-makers work through LCA recommendations to implement appropriate policies in their locality. We suggest that this narrative smooths over and presents as linear a process that is in fact messy and political. LCAs emerge as a result of political pressure and bargaining. Once LCAs have run their course, the extent to which their recommendations are implemented is dependent on power dynamics and institutional capacities. We argue that it is important to surface the messiness and political tensions that underpin the origins and aftermath of local climate assemblies. This achieves three things. First, it helps manage expectations about the impact LCAs are likely to have on the policy process. Second, it broadens understandings of how LCAs can contribute to change. Third, it provides a complex model that actors can use to understand how they can help deliver climate action through politics. We conclude that LCAs are important — if as yet unproven — new interventions in local climate politics, when assessed against this more complex picture.

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