The misguided notion of Multispecies Justice: How conceptual and terminological ambiguity undermines biodiversity protection

Multispecies justice (MSJ) seeks to extend justice beyond humans to include non-human entities, offering an ethical framework for interspecies relationships. While this concept may appear to improve environmental stewardship, we argue that its openness risks undermining well-established principles of ecological conservation and justice. We argue that MSJ introduces conceptual ambiguity and lacks the potential for practical operationalisation, which risks moralising natural processes, overlooking the complexities of human-nature interactions, weakening conservation efforts and opening the door for political misuse. Furthermore, existing ethical and ecological conservation frameworks already provide practical approaches for including non-humans in justice, conservation and policy considerations. Instead of adopting an unclear and potentially counterproductive notion of justice, we therefore advocate for strengthening established conservation and justice principles to address the ongoing environmental crises more effectively.