Montana, Jasper2025-06-242025-06-24ORCID:/0000-0003-3405-2549/work/172418477http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140005989&partnerID=8YFLogxKhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/733764798Accelerated human impacts on the earth system bring urgency to the question of how responsibility can be appropriately and justly distributed across scales and actors. Drawing together theory from international relations and human geography with empirical analysis on responsibilities for biodiversity, this paper has two aims: to develop a framework for examining responsibilities for biodiversity that is applied to the context of the UK Overseas Territories; and to draw out broader lessons for thinking about environmental responsibilities more generally. The analysis draws particular attention to the importance of place-shaped responsibilities for biodiversity, which emerge as localised narratives of responsibility that take account of the enabling and resisting conditions that matter in particular places. Applied in the context of biodiversity governance, this suggests a need to join up policy issues, embed equity, explore multiple meanings, bridge pro-active and retrospective responsibilities, and enhance the role of the social sciences in enabling responsibilities.The author would like to thank the interviewees that contributed to this study and the organisations working on the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the UKOTs. This research was supported by funding from the Leverhulme Trust as part of an Early Career Fellowship. The author greatly valued feedback received during the Earth System Governance 2021 Bratislava Conference, as well as from the Technological Life research cluster, and Land Use and Sustainability Governance group at the University of Oxford.11enPublisher Copyright: © 2022 The AuthorBiodiversityEarth system governanceHuman geographyResponsibilityUK Overseas territories202210.1016/j.esg.2022.10015685140005989