Recent proposals for large-scale nature conservation, such as Half-Earth (Socialism) or the 30 × 30 agenda, rely on a distorted notion of nature as a pristine realm untouched by human influence. This idea, which we term the ‘wilderness fetish’, builds on the historically produced separation of nature and society central to capitalist modes of accumulation. In upholding a moral and aesthetic ideal of untouched nature, the wilderness fetish conceals the material and social relations involved in the production and conservation of ‘the wild’ and its own socio-historical genesis. We argue that the wilderness fetish gained traction at the precise moment when the search for capitalist solutions to the capitalogenic crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecological degradation intensified.

Drawing on Marx’s concept of the commodity fetish, we theorise the wilderness fetish as a category of both moral and economic value. It is inspired by, and complementary to, the concept of commodity fetishism, but takes shape in the domain of conservation. Under conditions of late capitalism, wilderness is produced and valorised, while simultaneously playing a pivotal role in ideological and material reproduction. Capitalism and conservation are deeply entangled by a fetishistic logic. Therefore, we foreground the importance of pursuing qualitative, rather than merely quantitative, changes to enable genuine social-ecological transformations for the future.