Relational Commons: An Ontological and Governance Framework Beyond Protected Areas and the Boundaries of Conservation

Abstract

As conservation efforts accelerate to meet global targets like 30 × 30, they risk deepening exclusion, enclosure, and ecological fragmentation. We interrogate the legal and institutional foundations of conservation to reveal how territorialization, centralized authority, and human-nature separation persist in dominant governance models. In response, we propose relational commons as “an ontological and governance framework that centers the interdependence of human and more-than-human beings, and the abiotic entities and ecological processes that sustain them, where care for these dynamic relations becomes the basis for shared responsibility and decision-making.” Relational commons are not tenured spaces but practices that unsettle the illusion that individual rights, fixed boundaries, independence, or human-centered governance ever provided a meaningful foundation for conservation. Extending commons scholarship, this approach shifts focus from managing resources to cultivating the conditions for multispecies flourishing. We articulate four principles: (1) relations, where rights structure reciprocal responsibilities; (2) power-sharing, where boundaries become interfaces of collaboration; (3) interdependence, which foregrounds care and co-flourishing; and (4) multispecies–ecosystem justice, which distributes agency across human and more-than-human worlds. Together, these principles offer an inclusive and future-oriented alternative to fragmented conservation logics.